Norman Bates would feel right at home here. The motel is two stories high and ten units long. There has never been a pool. Even when new, this business lacked the energy to offer anything but a place for the road weary to catch a few hours of sour, exhausted sleep; or for WestEnd lovers to whinny and tangle in the arms of someone else's spouse.

The road that passes the building is less busy these days; pocked by potholes; its blacktop nibbled away at the edges. The few vehicles that do pass are likely to raise clouds of dust or sheets of mud depending upon the vagaries of weather. Most of the units are empty, though the business keeps up a pretense of staying open. Those that inhabit these rooms now are likely to pay by the month, or to have made their own unique arrangements with the management.

There is electricity still. The sign that once blinked "Outpost Motel" to catch the eyes of sleepy travelers has suffered losses to time and vandals, though the letters "O pos Motel" do occasionally illuminate, accompanied by the hiss and whine of electricity losing its way. The rooms that are in some state of repair are likely to have lights, as well as shoebox refrigerators and microwaves. Halfway down the second story walkway, a stubborn ice machine still coughs and rumbles like a consumptive robot.

But it is on the first floor that we have business. Were we to open the door to the last unit on the right, a number "10" in faux bronze numerals tacked to the exterior wall, we would see obvious signs of residence. Of course, were we to actually enter uninvited, we would, depending upon the time of day or night, die at the hands of one or more security devices before the occupant could get her unusual hands upon us. And though we might not appreciate it at the time, any death by booby trap, be it blade or bludgeon, would be a blessing in comparison to Artsblood Schusberg's mercy when meted out to someone who dared intrude into her hovel, her bolthole, her home.

And it is the Kindred girl's dwelling that we enter virtually, ourselves as invisible as a roach secure behind the faded foxhunt print that decorates the wall. Clothing, much of it black, litters the floor, the bed, the back of the lone chair. There seems little in the way of food save a bottle or two of wine and an opened 5-pound sack of sugar setting upright in the scant snow of its own spillings. If she has entertained recently, there might be fruit or juice or ale in the tiny refrigerator, but she entertains seldom.

Still, for all of its disarray, Number Ten seems somehow not lived in. To find the reason we must intrude further still, and even to do so virtually might send a brief thrill of danger, a frisson, along the fine hairs of your arms. It is in the adjoining room, you see, entered from this one, that the strange girl sleeps away the daylight hours. From without Number Nine seems empty, its lone window broken and boarded up. From within it is a fortress; walls, doors, even the floor and ceiling reinforced. In this room the bed is obviously used, the sheets atangle. They are seldom changed, for the girl who tosses in them does not sweat; in fact, there is little scent at all to her long, thin body, and that a fragrance only a lover would know.

Is it thoughts of a lover that disturb her sleep now, as her improbable legs scissor and jack-knife, stirring sheets. Her hands, their fingers so long that some find it uncomfortable to look at them, knead and grasp. If she touches herself in this disturbed slumber we will look away; it is the decent thing to do. Surely something visits her in sleep, though. Something or someone.

Nightfall approaches now. Soon the "O pos Motel" will again defiantly flash its name against the darkening sky. And at very close to the same time, two huge brown eyes will snap open upon that tangled bed, and the pale girl who dreamt there will go from sleep to wakefulness with the suddenness of a thrown switch. Her time is almost here. Perhaps it is time, as well and at last, for her dreams to come true?

The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face. - William Wordsworth Three years she grew in Sun and Shower

It was not sleep so much as a giving over to her trueness, restful but not recuperative like sleep was for most. For that, for sustenance, she needs the physical and that will come soon enough. Now is for the learning. This night, as she reconnects with the infinite, she keeps the threads close. Spreading out only within the boundaries of this neighborhood to taste and experience.

On the bed of her third floor room, a sly smile curves upon the lips of her physical self. There appears to be a new player in town, one of dark cunning, apparently vast resource, and . . . secrets. He would be watched.

Another, enigmatic, not at all what he appears nor even what hints just below the surface, dangerous. Perhaps doubly so, seeing a new student's eye has caught sight of him, a student of unhealthy predilections and destructive needs; an alliance that might bode unwell.

The shadowed theatre looks to have a new tenant, too. One not above parceling out menial labor to those better suited. A trait the Ancient respects.

Stretching farther, into the city, she still sees the eyes of her siblings, tastes their confusion. For all their watching, their prey eludes them. She and her family are safe, safe as houses for now, and she was . . . hungry' Legs twitch beneath thin covers, moonwhite lashes fluttering above pale cheeks as she gathers the threads to her.

Ah, what lights along the street, seeking in need, threatening to blow away with the wind like so much dandelion fluff in the wake of a child's breath' She moves then, as quietly as the crawl of time itself, unheard, unseen; an art her race did not have to learn, something they have been simply graced with. Down three flights of stairs, through the unlit house and out by a back gate until she is behind the seemingly fragile figure, a firm hand resting to a thin shoulder.

"Lookin' for me are ye, dux?" A bright, disarming smile readily in place.

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me. - Unknown

Arts lay beside me, head resting almost weightless to the pillow, and though I could not see her eyes - those liquid brown jewels I so wanted to lose myself within - I knew they were shrouded halfway in smokey-lidded relaxation. Languidly my fingertips traced abstract patterns across her chilled flesh, my gaze unfocused and turned to the shadows fluttering on the wall from the amber glow of the spell lamp. She was captivating, enthralling. Strong, fragile . . . dangerous. Strange beauty.

Try as I might, wish as I could, the sharpness of paranoia clawed at me. And the endless internal battle waged anew as I silently told myself I was obsessing to no ends, pushing down the mania that can overtake my kind. Yet, what if I was wrong"

"Frellin' Hezmana!" I nearly jumped out of my skin, fingertips snatching off Arts' back with the pounding at the front door. 'Easy, Sid. Those out to get ye dun normally knock.'

One of Scottie's shirts hung on the bed post. Reaching for it, I shook myself from a startled expression and gestured 'hang on' at a lazy look from my strange beauty. The sky had just lost its purple, no moon shining on the night streets made it seem later than it was from the view outside the bay window as I came around the bottom of the stairs. Not late, yet who could possibly be . . .

"Psychic Deli! We know what ya want before you do!" I blinked and closed my mouth that had dropped open stupidly at the sight of the older, fresh-faced teen holding out a brown paper bag. 'Ye know, I be jus' 'avin' a hankerin' for . . .'

"Hey!" Inside the bag nested a jar of sweet hot mustard, a length of sliced summer sausage, vintage sharp cheddar, a sizable bunch of seedless red grapes and a bottle of what I knew had to be heavily sugared wine.

The male stood there, annoying smile in place, hands shoved into the front pockets of jeans splattered with neon glowing blobs of paint. I had a sudden vision of smacking that smile clean off his face before resigning myself and handing him the amount marked on the bag from the cash I kept by the door in the desk. No tip. No protestations, either. Just the sight of his black booted feet beating a hasty retreat. I can't imagine the sight of my own smile as I handed him the fee was all that reassuring. He left too quick, though, no time to say it wasn't really meant for him.

Popping a grape to my mouth and heading back to Arts, I knew I had gotten too complacent in this bubble of solitude reigning over my neighborhood. Psychic Deli, indeed.

"Arts, sweet?" Handing her the bottle and sitting cross-legged atop the bed. "I believe we mayhaps 'ave company."

He heard the same compression of footfall, and in the strange half-in state (half in reality) could hear the friction and those compliant forces of most basic physics. The small points of contact the desertman held with the wall glimmered with energy. "It's waiting." he spoke simply and quietly in a tone that may have been less than a claw scrape and more a thought..given..to the student, before he tensed and backed away from the lit window slightly. A shuffled, new grasp on the wall, a different angle. "Brace." he said next, and the light of the window exploded with a now misplaced table. The motion was a vivid abstraction (distraction) of kinetic energy, the waiting breadth of its potential energy collecting beneath like a comet paused, now that gravity could see it; falling, splintered below in a rapture of oak and iron. Entropy dark as an old crow. Those angry glass wasps had performed something equally strange as they exploded outwards, sprayed to the side and towards this pair of building clinger and child. It had stuck in the air like a myriad of small throwing knives till released to fall a new and glittering path to the ground. Somewhere, the desertman took a deep breath tempered in anger and adrenaline. Logic made small statements about surprise and unknowing, but there were certain things about this place, this house, the two within that may mean a sound heard still had a name and a source. He was angry, in the way a blank mask may display a face of contorted anger. Seething was left for deeper, less acute waters. The easy reverse of path to send the glass flying back into a window and then further....No (these are things we no longer are...).

Tableau, said the moment. There were things instinct wanted (to move in through that convenient door that was a window..), and the mind voted instead upon waiting. Some compromise made as the desertman spidered back into his previous position (could reach out and touch glass teeth). Let us wait, said the uncompromising solidity beneath the child, let the eyes see first what they attempt to destroy (then we judge....or move, in simplicity). That unseen mass had grown vague angles and edges of cloth, and a hand moved to tug the goggles down so that black eyes may feel more free in the frisson of now.

From her place at the cusp of light and shadow, Alma can see both the lighted window and the door on the adjacent face of the brownstone. Perhaps she laughs to herself, white gloved hands, clad in paper-thin doeskin, lifted to her carefully sculpted mouth as the arranged delivery occurs. Alma has spent an inordinate amount of time in the Inns of the area, and WestEnders and RhyDinites of many stripes have proven as loose of tongue as people tend to be elsewhere. Not a psychic deli, really, just very, very well informed.

The progression of the strange child and her stranger tutor up the wall is also followed: a gloved finger settling her wire-rims higher on her nose as she looks up, Alma does not regret this additional drama intruding into the story she is here for. She has learned to choreograph amid chaos, and she finds a minuet without unexpected trips and stumbles—or even the sudden intrusion of a mosh pit—to be a pale dance indeed.

Still, Alma startles briefly at the eruption of table through the closed window, at the surprising control of the resulting shards, and at the girl's subsequent fall (and yes, a glove does touch her pretty lips, feeling the pulse of gentle laughter, at the child's outburst). She considers the tumbling girl for a moment, and shuts off concern like a ledger already closed. The monstrous tutor will provide aid if there is any need to. A mere two stories will not break that particular doll.

All in all, it is a pretty mess, and therefore a perfect time to introduce herself into its mix. A last glance as the flurry of activity by the broken window, and, straightening her short tweed cape, the coifed blonde walks, clickheels, to the door that had recently opened to an unexpected delivery. She finds a heavy knocker (cold iron, proof against mage-knocks), and lifts it with a delicate hand, letting it fall once, twice, three times. And then, 'brully firmly in hand, she awaits her cue to advance upon this particular stage.

Alma collects her poise as the door swings open: Posture good, eyes frank and attentive, smile warm but not too ingratiating. She has some idea of what to expect, her investigations have earned her that much, but still she is surprised as the door swings open and she looks up, and up, and up at the shirt-clad beauty in front of her.

Collecting herself while Sid speaks, Alma lets her trained senses open to a firehose of information. She notes accent and tone, gathers in scents (which hint at recent intimacies) and reads nonverbal messages; she notes the easy angle of hip, the slight roseate flush of cheek. Alma has no misconceptions about the danger she faces in this seemingly casual encounter. Despite this and despite her surprise, however, her posture, eyes, and smile remain unchanged, correct.

She dips her head for a moment, acknowledging the greeting.

"Good evening, I do hope this isn't too impertinent a disturbance. My name is Alma Stuart. I'm actually looking for your"houseguest"...a Ms. Shusberg" I have a matter to discuss with her, concerning, well, a bit of an inheritance. I've tried to contact her, but been unable to, and have even become concerned that she might have reservations about such contact.....Thus I though it might be more comfortable for her to encounter me in the presence of a friend.

"Such was my logic, at any rate, for coming here rather than trying to visit her directly at her quaintly named motel. I confess I dawdled, waiting across the street for some time, wondering whether my plan was indeed too clever by half. I would likely have thrown it in and tried another day for fear of bothering you, but," and here she glances over her shoulder toward the adjacent wall with its destroyed window, "I fear you've already been disturbed, and hope that my tiny intrusion will do little to worsen an already interrupted evening?"

A blink of pale blue eyes, clouded by the tint and thickness of the lenses in her gold-framed glasses, sharp wings of honey blonde hair swing back across her lightly freckled cheeks as she lifts her head to meet Sid's eyes. "Of course if you have any concerns about my presence, any at all, I will apologize for my impertinence and simply sod off?"

"One may wonder..." quietly in answer to the steelbird's collection of words, eyes turned back and downwards to view the fallen child. In abstract of glittering glass, light, lack of context....one might think she leaped from the window with the unfortunate table. Ever made of few, and vague, words, only an ear flicked back at Art's departing for the disturbed front door.

Eventually the sandman was back down upon the ground by way of indeterminate method. It's just easier to imagine he reversed the rock climber's path taken upwards. Some strange color of tenderness perhaps as the desertman crouched next to the student, ruined by the silent proficiency of his search for wounds of serious nature. He knew something of the unlikelihood that this inflicted anything harmful or lasting....much in the way the desertman's lack of concern was assumed in the matter of flying glass and old wood.

"Perhaps spying eyes are better left to conventional mouths..." not much chiding in the suggestion, but something close to the almost-humor the steelbird spoke with. Careful claws against the angry false-diamond teeth of the ground, he picked up the student in the mimick of a child's cradle and managed it with greater ease than his thin form might have suggested. All the air's mysteries....but there was little doubt that the owner of the brownstone could add his dust to the Desert as easily, perhaps, as a breath and a thought.

The offer of the open door allows no other polite recourse. With a pleasant nod, Alma enters the brownstone along the path indicated. The greatroom is just that, and there is something in its vaulted, dim ambiance that seems to accept her like a simple gold setting begs the finest gem. After a glance to her hostess seeking direction, she perches on the edge of a stuffed leather chair; hands atop her skirted knees, unbrella reversed, handle down, between them. Pale blue eyes just peeking over the gold frames of her wire-rimmed glasses, Alma pauses to examine the two women in front of her; aware, as well, of the strange pair that could well approach from behind. She shivers, a brief frisson of fear that is almost a sensual thing before, resettling her glasses with a white-gloved finger in a characteristic gesture, she begins. "I cannot exactly state my business briefly. It requires a bit of a tale, I'm afraid. However, recognizing the"how shall I put it"...eagerness of my audience, and the possible repercussions should I ramble on too long, I'll attempt to be concise." "I have come from Vienna, and I do represent Universal Insurance there. And my business does involve an inheritance of sorts for Ms. Shusberg?" The pale blue eyes examine the skinny woman with a certain hunger before continuing; judging, perhaps, the tension of the thin straps of muscle beneath her pale skin, the odds that she will make a move to end this narrative before it is well and truly begun. "I am, however, a relatively recent addition to the firm, and my involvement with the story that unfolds here precedes that," Alma's voice hardens, still soft spoken but with an edge to it now, like a chill blown among the words. "I had a brother, you see. A confused boy, though I loved him very much. There is no easy way to explain this: He loved women very much, so much that he wanted to become one. He became very adept in his disguise, in his manner. Hormones helped him, and he was saving money for an operation. I worried for him, but as I say I loved him dearly. He took the name Sienna, Sienna Grail." Does she dare a glance at Artsblood to watch the name strike he" No, she does not, the risk of a too hurried confrontation too great. "As I say, he loved women, and this is perhaps the part of his story that is hardest for most to understand. He loved them so much that wanted to be able to love them as a woman would. In a bar one night he met someone, someone whose own emotional state was such that she failed to notice the many signals that should have been obvious to a creature like her. She took my brother, my beautiful girl of a brother, home, and when she discovered what he was, she went"well, she went quite mad, didn't she?" Alma looks at no one, but the target of her words is clear; her breath comes quick, in little bursts, as she continues. "The murderess was not an absolutely evil sort, I imagine. At any rate, she felt regret for what she had done in a moment of shock and anger and, being the sort of creature she was, she brought my brother back to a kind of life, she made him what she was." Pale blue eyes finally flick over Arts then, and seem to take some pleasure in the pale woman's frozen attention. "But my poor Sienna, who had been somewhere between a him and a her, could not accept the "it-ness" of the existence she had given him. Within months he dared the sunlight and finished the job she had begun. "Before that, though, she had tried to educate him in his new state. Had told him of her own Sire, in Vienna, and of the group of elder women of her clan that met there, that plotted to increase the influence of the Toreador. Sienna"Sienna and Vienna, you cannot imagine how that coincidence has galled me"told me all before he/she died. So it was to Vienna I went seeking revenge. "But when I finally found that group, those Toreador 'sisters" as they called themselves, the Sire I sought had already been destroyed, by Ms. Shusberg's lover at the time" The elders had begged the daughter to take her place on the council. They were refused. My arrival was, for them, a happy coincidence." Her eyes are on Arts alone now. "I wonder if you knew that each of the members of that council had drawn blood, had left it in careful storage, aa legacy, as it were?" Here she slips a small glass vial from her pocket and opens it for a moment, the rich copper scent seems to flood the room, and Alma smiles at the shock in Artsblood's eyes. "Yes, Ms. Shusberg; it is Hilde's blood, Sire's blood. I thought you would recognize it. But I have one more little surprise. You see, they saw me as a handy tool, a hook with which to draw you back to take your Sire's role. They found me work at Universal Insurance. The one you know as Hana, your "aunt' if you will, Embraced me, and then they contracted with a thaumaturge of the Tremere clan to take a sample of Hilde's liquid legacy and work a little blood-magic miracle upon me. As I happy side effect I lost any characteristic scent that would identify me as Kindred, though when I bleed there is a certain fragrance." Her movement is startlingly quick, as if she were suddenly another thing entirely, as she forces the point of the umbrella through white doeskin glove and into the pretty swelling of meat at the base of her thumb. A quick blood-rose blooms upon that snowy field, and the scent is the same as before. She slips her glasses down, pale blue eyes boring into the stunned face of the brown-eyed woman. "Do enjoy your inheritance, darling: a sister you never had, a mother reborn. A Sire renewed! And for me, perhaps, a vengeance begun?"

Stirring in the abrasive cradle of arms, Tina surely hears her tutor, but her answer will be delayed. First, she must focus her fierce, if fickle, attention upon the injuries she has received. Big eyes squeeze tight, perhaps milking one or more pink tears, though whether these indicate hurt or strain or reaction to the situation at large would be difficult even for her to discern.

The effort shows, however. First the open wounds left by the glass the desertman has so gently plucked away purse themselves, drawing closed into thin lines, like mouths after disapproving speech, and then fading away. The bruises too, heavy on her upper thigh and arm, are starkly visible where they are not covered by her tennis whites. Like a color Polaroid print in reverse, these are first thunderstorm blue-black, before shifting to a sickly yellow-green and finally disappearing beneath the usual tan of her small, muscled form.

The healing costs her, certainly. but it is only moments, still, before she opens her eyes to her erstwhile savior; and shakes her head in adamant negative at his suggestion that she give up this pursuit. Despite her efforts, she has heard the door upon the adjacent wall open; has noted that there was no sound of closure. She hugs the strange neck once as she wriggles free, as awkward in the gesture as a frog attempting flight.

"The door was left open for a reason, teacher. I suspect there are syllabi for me yet to absorb before this particular seminar is spent?"

And yet she pauses. As unheard of as it may be, there is little question that the child-woman is asking for permission before she proceeds. The question hangs like a crown of fish hooks over the littered tangle of her practical, short-cropped brown hair.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but recognize the opportunity. - John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

A nightbird flutters down to land upon a brass finial. The spell lamp beneath gives out a sizzle-buzz before the light dims within, and the odd woman in tweed enters the 'stone. Having closed the door on the broken doll and her caring scarecrow, the Ancient follows down the hall. However, like many things in WestEnd, doors sometimes have a mind of their own and are wont do what they want to do.

The nightbird casts a silver eye downwards peering through that open door to the semi-gloom of the corridor beyond, and Sid smiles. Fox light in her gaze, she flicks a brief look backward.

Alma's story is not for her, but she settles out of the way to listen and watch, sitting on the steps leading down to the great room where they curve and hug the far wall. Leaning there against the wall corner, pulling the sleep tee down over one bent knee.

The scenes play on, as they will, one in darkened streets, one in the spell lit ambience of a vaulted room at the center of this twisted district. And the Ancient watches. Waiting.

Sid recognizes the tale Alma tells does not bode well for her strange beauty. Knows the look on Arts' face, when the thin girl scents the blood blossoming, only too well; as if she's seen it staring back at her out of too many unforgiving surfaces. Still she waits, there is more to come.

Outside in the night streets, atop a flickering lamp a nightbird serenades a lone sentinel with strange warblings of a maniacal tune.

White is, simultaneously, the color of purity and pallor, of innocense and death, of cleanliness and decay. It is smoke and fog and steam. It is a lack of color, it is there but not. It is thus an appropriate hue to wear when drifting in unseen.

The open door was entered. The girl; pulled by madness, perhaps, or by a need for the destruction of her last unbroken part; wafts forward in brief white cotton. The blonde has her back to her, attention riveted ahead. Her mother's eyes will not see her; they are fried-egg wide, and as senseless. Her mother's lover, though that is not the word that Tina would choose to describe the Ancient, surely notices her, but the tall woman's attention might be upon a new line in a manuscript, so neutral are her eyes as they follow the advance of the stalking child.

Tina has seen enough, has heard too much. The subdued scream that has served her for a personality for so long has been lanced like a boil by the tableau in front of her.

Some say that love has the greatest strength, some say that hatred will always strike harder. Mix them both and they are a deadly parfait, a bittersweet chololate that poisons even while it urges the palate on. It is this that burns its way up Tina's spine, this that swings her racquet as she never has before, the effort of the blow lifting her off her feet, legs waving spastically free in the air as the weapon's carbon-fiber frame whips with a reptilian hiss at the perfect fall of hair that decorates the back of Alma's skull.

It was then, of course, that it hit her.

"what are you but my reflection" who am I to judge and strike you down" " Tool " "pushit'

The night-bird came, the night shuddered (the lamp is reflecting the air, not the song), and the lone sentinel turned. He did not face the door, the child-prowl, the now-ubiquitous scent of a rank blood whose power he could almost hear drifting along superstring ideals, but whose death repelled him. No. He faced the bird, weighed its reality against that of the sharp snap of carbon-fiber and bone. Anger, several voices, conflicting hatred, dim eyes" the impressions should have been enough to confuse, if it was not a maelstrom the sandman was accustomed to riding.

And there that red anger again. He wanted to reach for it, perhaps for effect, but turned back to the 'stone and the open echo of the door in the same terrible grayscale that defined the pragmatism of his thoughts (but has no room for the current action, what will happen. What game are you playing, to pretend so empty in mask and hand") for all the debating echo of the Second.

Steps and a door, the sentinel (not so sentinel are you, now..) that he played moved through and stood in the entrance hall for seconds. Three...seven, moved with contemplation forward with even a pause to gaze at the Ancient and then to the stuttering scene within. His mouth twitched in what was the memory of a snarl, destined to remain quite silent and disused (for the night, in the least). A garish ambience of red, even though the tweed-woman faced the girl and therefore, now face the sandman. He did not step before her, did not gesture to be between the mother and the puppet that the steelbird now played as (oh, but we understand that mechanic well, don't we. We remember, if you do not?). The vessel that was the tweed woman was not even acknowledged with words.

(hush.)

Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance. - Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

"Kill it for me, will you? There's a good girl.?

The Ancient watched it all, and from somewhere, the grapes from above seemed to have found their way to a pale hand. Long, spidery fingers plucking and lifting small orbs of fruit to thin lips while she waited.

It is about the time of the sandman's entrance - an illusion of a nod given with brief dipping of lids - when the tweed-draped female spoke the words she ought not. Up 'til then all had been a fine distraction. Perhaps the Trueblood found some concern, due to her strange beauty's enthrallment; still, the scene could yet play on and she would heed its outcome. But, with those words, no. It seemed not to be.

The daughter stilled with silent utterings, Sid's current morsel finds its way, uneaten, back to her palm. It is but a shifting of her form on that step, one foot brought down purposefully to meet its twin, fruit-cupping hand dropping gently to her side. Though, it is not the form, the face, nor even her tone one should note, but the eyes. Those eyes so calm and knowing. It is not confidence within, nor even dead certainity. No, those icily smiling eyes contain knowledge. Knowledge the words she speaks are but the simple, stated truth as she will have it.

"Nae, luv, ye dun wan' to be doin' tha' jus' now."

"One may be surprised, what the mind can survive?" and the gargoyle, the sentinel-thing that was the sandman spoke, and it was just words. Harsh notes of a desert-scoured voice, but the black eyes had turned from the teetering stasis of Artsblood to the mother-and-vessel. No picture of concern, regarding death and its stink of power, but the sandman was not known for painting petty obviousness into his form.

It might have been that brief flicker at the Ancient's words, the disruption behind tinted lenses that drew his gaze and kept it. Pick-pick-pick, like little claws" he wished to know the mechanic, perhaps taste the answering maliciousness of the tiny person beneath such a weight of Time and Thought. After all, such tricks are simpler if the minds agree (and we know this well). Clawed fingers rested a brief thing upon one thin, young shoulder of the still-and-waiting student, and the sandman stepped forward, around but never between (the mother and the child had their own to rehash, and perhaps he had never forgiven the child for that initial violence").

And then the hand was gone and the sandman might have stretched an arm and touched the tweed woman, though remained withdrawn. "Are your purposes the same?" the calm words were belied by the man's scent. Heat' a dead desert where the sun killed all things. It felt, this lull, like a play, and an idle, cynical thought wondered why the Ancient had spoken at all to pause the action (in all the terrible depths of Time and knowledge, why does this blink of moment matter any greater than those hundred-thousand others?).

Like a doorbell's summons reaching into sleep, the Ancient's words weave and wander for a moment between dream and wakefulness. Somewhere, far behind those tinted lenses, they touch Alma. She follows their ringing, a will of the wisp that leads her to consciousness. It is an unequal struggle, the old blood that has taken her is strong, and its spurs and harness expertly wielded. For all of that, though, for a moment the pale blue eyes blink behind the thickness and tint of lens; for perhaps a second Alma looks out from those eyes; a double shot of anger, laced with fear.

It is enough to break another bond, ample opportunity for Artsblood to see her would-be dominatrix stripped of the ichormancy that gave her power. Fury and shame are her resulting beverage. That such a thing would seek to rule her, and almost succeed, before this company! Her almost lipless mouth opens in a soundless hiss; the delicate jewels of her killing teeth slip free, erectile, skim-milk-blue-white, their opalescence as deep as the purest pearl. Quick as a mantis, a spider-scurry, and she is upon the blond, the gape of her face driving for throat.

Alma alone would be no easy adversary, her pretty, sparcely-freckled face drawn into a cat-hate to match the mindless insectile hunger of Arts. But Alma is not alone, and despite the Ancient's interruption the old blood surges anew. Long thin arms, rebar strong and rope-muscled under the abalone-white skin, are slowly forced back, the drooling fury of Artsblood's mouth denied as a white-gloved hand snares her ruined dandelion of hair, and, behind twin lenses, something old laughs out of unfamiliar eyes.

They are balanced there for a moment, hatred and a savored newfound power. There is no surrender in the huge brown eyes of the elegantly anorexic woman, but the tide does turn, in slow motion though the turning might be. Artsblood's head is dragged back on its thin column of neck, the frantic efforts of her skinny arms flail for naught. The match, it would seem, is almost over.

And would have been, were it not for the tanned, sportsgirl arms that reach from behind Alma, were it not for the young hands, toughened against a racquet grip as she played out games and sets fueled by the amphetimine of rejection, that grasp the twin blades of hair that swing along Alma's cheeks and drag them back.

Perhaps the blood was too newly returned to consciousness to cope with such a surprise. Distraction weakens it for a fatal second. Like a mantis striking, Arts drives her head in, hair tearing free in the hand that held it, and buries her face against Alma's neck.

And then the blood is hers, singing to her heart and she gulps at it, the orgiastic flood of feelings knocking her knees loose, flooding Alma, as well, as the very weakness of the draining brings her back to herself. Before it ends they are tangled like lovers, both bodies shuddering with the intensity of the union; with Tina's hands still in Alma's hair, the girl breathless above this strange consummation.

Artsblood falls free before the draining has emptied the other, her huge eyes drugged and dazed by the mother blood; that sentient stuff alike seeming to somehow find itself again, after years of waiting, strangely at home.

Alma is weak, but not so much so that she cannot straighten the disorder in her dress, the line of stocking, the drape of tweed, and resettle fallen glasses almost prissily upon her nose. If she is embarassed by what she has been here, or by what she might have said or done in the passion of feeding, it does not show.

She stands, a little weak of knee, and Tina's hands fall away as she does. Time to focus those lens-blurred eyes upon each in turn is enough for her to gain some composure, and there is a hard little smile on the lipstick smear of her mouth as the speaks.

"It would seem that the inheritance has been delivered. I do pride myself upon a job well done. As for any personal objectives, I am a patient girl. I think I will prolong my stay here...." and she pauses long enough to let the hidden fish of her pale blue eyes move over the blood-drunk Arts, the daughter and tutor, and even the Ancient. The touch is like that of an inked finger, and seems to linger even when the eyes have moved on.

"After all, it seems I owe you all a chance to get to know the real me...."

Her tweed skirt and short cape back in order, there may be a slight stiffness as her weakened legs try for nonchalance as she walks out, but there is an undeniable sway of hip, as well; a wounded flounce, perhaps, but a flounce no less, before the night closes over her, before its old, classic curtain drops on down.

Every single day, and every word you say Every game you play, every night you stay I'll be watching you - The Police

It was a dance for three.

Almost she was the stillness of the desert man. Almost. Like deep water it is mere deception.

For one such as she the moment is less than a breath. All stop. And the dance moves forward, onward as things always do.

No matter we wish them not"

Nae matter we wish them nae.

Arts is fogged and the daughter remains, hands down, waiting the inevitable that may or may not come. But, it is the spark that is Alma the Ancient's eyes watch as she flitters and fusses, making her last vows before grand-exiting to the night.

"After all, it seems I owe you all a chance to get to know the real me...."

Tha' I mos' certainly will be seein' to.

One gentle motion incomplete; a hand, rising to touch against her strange beauty's arm in reassurance ....for reassurance" That depth of shame in jewel-brown eyes had not been lost to the Ancient despite moment's brevity. Yet, the sandman catches her attentions and the hand remains; captured, a flashphoto study.

It is too hard, these things, these emotions. Awkward and unsettling. Dark-threaded eyes track the movement of the male down the hall and halfway back. A simple nod given to the once-again sentinel, eyes bursting quicksilver spark with the flutter of nightwings in the dark.

And that hand once more moves forward, onward as things always do.

"Arts? C'mon back now, luv."

Family values....

The "L" word. Repeated twice. The first time it snaps her chin up like a slap. The second, it is tasted by the huge gray eyes that mark her heritage, drunk in by ears hidden beneath her practical short brown hair, mouthed in silent echo by the girl's tentative lips. Tina straightens, a trout to the dappled surface, a bird gingerly winging upon the suddenly solid air, and her face finds her mother's face.

Small fists open, the daffodil-yellow locks she tore from Alma's head fall to the ground. A strange stew of emotions surrounds them. The very air still charged with the sour tang of fear, the bitterness of shame, the capsicum of anger and the viscious eroticism of the feeding. Moments before Tina had struggled, Alma in her grasp writhing like a cobra, and felt that resistance fade and change as the draining drove her prisoner through the many gates of Eros and, finally, over its welcoming cliff.

There is something of that eagerness, then, as the taut, tanned little body stumbles forward, clasps itself to mother-flesh in an embrace that throws out bright spectrums of age, of need, of desire. Bone-white pipestem arms close upon the girl in turn, and two bodies, one compact and browned, the other all anorexic ivory, twine and twist, tangled like nightcrawlers in a jar.

And if there is perhaps too much of the erotic in that embrace as two arms, different in length and hue, reach out to urge the Ancient to join in, perhaps they will be forgiven. Consider the exotic boulaibaisse of aromas that surround them, consider the rocks and rapids of emotion they have only so recently run. And if you, quiet watcher, are moved to tut your tongue in disapproval, to turn your scandalized eyes from this strange binding, remember too, that—while nominally mother and child—these creatures are not really all that human, and that morality is as species-specific as diet, and as ephemeral as the gods.