March 12, 2015

It has taken him two whole days to find out where Bethany lives and that was only after asking everyone around town. Most people just ignored him, some grunted and a few told him to "find it his damned self." A girl with a gray plaid dress and hair the color of fire helped him out and even wrote down the address for him on the back of a store flier.

This place is so detached, so gray that it doesn't take long for him to understand just why his ex-wife clings to this little backwater melting pot like she does. Why she's so defensive about it.

It's a lot like home. Sure the people, the buildings, the everything else is different, but the stale aura of cheap liquor, cigarettes and loneliness are here. It just isn't hidden behind pretty cypress trees and phony, smiling faces.

Nathan eventually finds himself in a crumbling, dilapidated burg; the buildings, the streets and the people all painted with the same, depressing gray brush. His heart aches at the thought of his Beth living in a place like this.

Need to get her out of here. Not safe. Not safe.

He stops in front of the brownstone that matches the address on the poster and brings his fist down, heavy and hard, against the metal door.

In the distance, a clock tower's bell chimes low and mournful.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...

When no one answers, he knocks again.

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12...

He knocks harder this time, over and over again, hoping that the girl in the grocery store hasn't mislead him.

The screeching sound of a metal door being opened pulls his eyes forward to the woman standing in front of him.

***************************************

Dark hair a disheveled Dionysian halo around her head and still dressed in an over sized white button up shirt, Bethany gives him the look that she gives everyone when they disturb her from her sleep. It's the bastard child of a scowl and a pout and it just accentuates the bumblebee colored bruises on her cheek and neck.

She knows they're there, of course, and now she's keenly aware that Nathan knows too. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, a stark contrast to the self induced insanity that usually hangs there.

Worried. He looks worried about her.

"Go the **** away, Nate. There is nothing for you here."

"Bethany, hi, I..."

"What are you doing here?" She asks, her tone even and cool.

"I was just checking on you."

He always looks so fascinated, so in awe when he sees her and she tries hard these days not to think too much about it.

He sounds so worried. Why is he so worried? Oh right, the bruises.

She presses her back against the wall of the stairwell, just enough to allow him some room, and when his lumbering gait drags him in, she reaches back out and pulls the door shut.

Bethany knows that the question is hanging on the tip of his tongue, but she doesn't want to answer him. Of all of the questions he could ask during his visit, that one is one that she knows will breaks his heart. She turns her back to him, quick feet pounding up each step two at a time until finally and the echo matches Nathan's heavy steps in perfect syncopation.

"What do you want, Nathan?" she repeats, cigarette smoke breathless and her milkshakey voice faltering.

************************************************** *

What did he want?

He tosses the question around in his mind while standing there, frozen in his tracks in a room that is scattered with his son's toys. A small hand gives him a shove and he finds that his legs do still work. He looks over building blocks and toy trains to the little specks of dust covering framed pictures that no longer have him in them.

Right.

"I just wanted to check up on you," he finally stutters out, broken record boy, the urge to bolt down the steps and out of the door a strong one.

Ahead of him Bethany flops down onto a couch and stretches out a leg, the other folded beneath her, and her toes turn the dial on a small, black and white television. While her eyes watch Sylvester try his best to catch Tweetie between white noise and specks of snow, his own gaze travels to the closed door on the other side of the room.

"I'm fine, Nathan, and before you ask, Henry is over at mom's. I'd suggest you not pay her a visit too."

"What about the brusies, Beth?"

He knows something is there, even if he can't pin the "what" or the "who" of it down. Something in the base of his brain, an alarm bell, goes off. It's a gnawing, clawing primitive little remnant that knocks his fight or flight response into full gear.

The woman on the couch, huddled into a ball beneath a plaid square of fleece, just looks at him as if he has suddenly sprouted another head.

"I passed out again. It," she sighs, "it wasn't as bad as before, and thank God Henry wasn't here. I was only out for a few minutes."

She sounds so very tired, but not afraid. It strikes Nathan as odd and terrifying that she doesn't have the same response as he does. She looks, for all intents and purposes, comfortable.

Had he ever seen her this comfortable?

Long legs carry him to the couch and he sits down next to her. With some effort he tears his red rimmed eyes from Henry's bedroom door and focuses them on the cartoon. Anywhere but the cold, blue eyes now staring holes into him.

***********************************

Her hopes had been that if she ignored him, perhaps he would go away. She feels the couch sink with his weight and turns her head to him, but it has long since been established that hints roll off of Nathan Kay like water from an oily surface.

"Should I even ask how you know my address?" She asks, no attempt given to keep her voice from sounding anything but inhospitable."

He clucks his tongue against the inside of his cheek, his fingers steepled atop his knees. "A girl gave it to me at the grocery store."

There is something about Nathan his wife will never know, and though he has come close to telling her, he has always managed to stop himself because sometimes even he has trouble believing it.

It isn?t heroine or acid or even something so innocuous as pot that has Nathan in its grasp, but blood. Vampire blood to be exact. His heart beats and the sun is harmless to him. He enjoys food and taking long naps. But for over five hundred years, Nathan Kay, real name Natanael Kj?rstad, has been a ghoul.

Ghouls are weird even in a world filled with weird creatures. So long as they get their fix, they remain immortal. Their sense of pain is dulled, physical but not mental, and most are content getting it the old fashioned way; by flitting about as servants to their undead masters.
While this had been Nathan?s story long ago, he has since relied on his own cunning to keep from being blood bound to them.

There is a lesson in that. Vampires do not cotton well to ghouls who steal blood. While not a problem for younger ghouls who can simply go the route of kicking the habit and still be relatively unscathed, Nathan is far too old.

If he simply stops then he will revert to the age that he should appear, and then just crumble into dust.

This, surprisingly enough, does not appeal to him.

Once upon a time his corner of the world had been ripe with foolish neonates who saw themselves as invincible. They were easy enough to track down, given Nathan?s connections, but vampires are none to0 happy to be parted with the blood outside of their own terms, and thus that meant dispatching them once he had gotten his fill.

Fine and dandy, easy as candy, but word does spread and Nathan, at present, finds that he is bordering on completely and utterly screwed. Now even the dumbest of fledglings eye him with suspicion.

In dire straits on several different crappy levels, he returns to his mockingly pink hotel room and flops down on the bed. Thoughts zip in and out of his head, but the one that seems to really stick is a memory of years past. Three years ago, when he was still with Bethany and she was pregnant with Henry, his nightly excursions had kept him gone for a solid three weeks. During that time he made the acquaintance of vile, sweet voiced Nosferatu named Lana.

At the time not even he was that desperate, but Lana seemed to have the most glorious habit of running her mouth. He told her where he was from, where he was originally from, and one thing eventually lead to another. As the pieces of their conversation began falling into place, she revealed to him that they shared a common thread.

A loathsome Toreador named Mona. After some math using the details given to him, Nathan discovered that the prodigal sister his mother had always spoken of with tears in her eyes was still alive. Undead.

Whatever.

Lying on his bed, he picks at that thought until he falls asleep.

March 14 2015

(Taken from play with Zofie's mun.)

Zofie's spot under the umbrella has less to do with her concern for her own saturation as that of the spread of cervigriff (eagle-deer) barbecue that takes up most of her table. The back of her chair is covered by the long, high-necked blue coat the matches her loose high waters, leaving her gold sequined tank top to catch and reflect the errant light from the tiki torches and gas lamps settled around the massive crater in which the restaurant resides, and from whence it received its name. Orcs and dock goblins seem to compose most of the staff, occasionally muttering about opening up a second location in Old Temple, due to the district's recent top bidding for Raging -Show.

Zofie simply snorts out a few snickers as she cleans the softball-sized, beaked and antlered noggin of its meats, simply taking in some atmosphere for the night.

Once Nathan has freshened himself up in the bathroom (freshened here meaning a quick whore's bath in the sink, and a trim of the ol' chin ferret), he stuffshis old clothes- stale from days of wear and tear- into a hunter green backpack, covering the knives and various other tools while also effectively muffling their clanking.

Pulling on a fresh white tee, boxers and blue jeans, he tosses on his old tan coat and heads outside, a nod to the annoyed mother and child waiting just by the bathroom door. Standing in the middle of the floor, Nathan's pale pale eyes scan the patrons gathered here, and were he not already a man accustomed to weirdness, he knows without a shadow of a doubt that the sight of orcs and trolls and whatever that pink haired girl iss eating just outside would have made him fudge his undies.

Taking in a deep breath to steel himself- time to crap or get off of the pot- he starts with one patron and then another and another, asking them all the same question- "Do you know Mona Oliveira?"- and, mercifully, getting the same response, -"No"-. The scent of food is killing him, dragging growl after growl from his stomach, but he has bigger, badder matters to attend to. When the inside proves fruitless, he moves outside and starts again- a few tables away from Miss Kaminsky.

Zofie's head lifts just a tad as she catches a hint of "ddh yn nuh mnnu olhviruh" muffled at the distance, mostly from Dire Straits' "Walk of Life", of all things, cranked on the sound system. She nearly opens her mouth to speak before remembering that it is full of hybrid animal eyeball. Thus, she simply chews and swallows daintily with her mouth closed, before leaning forward and turning an ear to follow what the scruffy, scrawny blonde fellow seems to be doing.

It is apparent enough that she is following his motions, and doubly so that she hasn't an ounce of the usual defensive paranoia surrounding such matters. Sidelong through blue cat-glasses frames, she tracks his motion, carefully nibbling on a rib in the meanwhile.

It's looking like old news for Nathan. Either Mona actually doesn't exist and the universe is really just having a ball reeming him right in the ear, or she is super good at hiding. If she is anything not at all like him, it's the latter.

Thanking each person and apologizing for interupting their grub downs, he stops to survey who is left with a rake of his fingers through his blond hair. The music is alright, but what sort of karmic asshattery is going on that it's Dire Straits?

His eyes land on the last customer not to have been treated to the question, and he sauntersover to Zofie will all of the mastery of a young horse not yet used to how long its legs are.

"Hey, excuse me. I was wondering if you could help me out? I'm looking for someone." To his credit, he also tries not to think too hard about what Zofie is cramming in her mouth. Or the way her mouth moves.

Cut the guy some slack. He's divorced and it's really been a long time.

Well, heck.

Zofie holds the far end of the rib between her forefinger and thumb as she pulls off a chunk of meat, her lips pursing in a manner that makes them seem a touch fuller than they really are, which isn't helped by the little flicks of tongue at the corners to clear up the bits of dry rub.

In spite of her meal, Zofie does, at first glance, seem like a harmless thing, yet her body language and its lack of both forward motion or defensiveness, not to mention her dead-on look to his face, might have struck the average person as unnerving. She shrugs and tilts her head to the side, setting the meat-cleared rib aside before delicately lifting a drumstick, complete with the talons intact, up to nibble off a bit more.

"Well, my eyesight kinda sucks, so I'm not sure how big of a help I'd be."

She sits an elbow on the table as her legs fold atop the seat, her wry smirk and drooping lids affable in spite of her smartassery.

Nathan isn't average, but he is still unnerved, and thus he keeps his distance. Some animals are fine until you invade their personal space, and Nathan isn't about to test those waters.

"I'm looking for a Mona Oliveira. I heard that she lived here."

Wherever here is. When a mage offers to repay a favor, you take it while you can, no questions asked.

Let it be known that he has no hope that this interaction will lead him anywhere, some part of him sure that his quest will never end, that he is stuck on some perpetual loop.

Zofie has a moment to look at the speaker, thankfully, before offering some off-putting ribaldry into the world. Something about the cut of his face, weird corners in his eyes and lips have her pink brows steepling and her posture slowwwly moving upright.

"? I mean? she lives a ways from here, but she ain't too far?" She takes much larger bite from the foreleg, munching it down enough to tuck in the corner of her cheek with her tongue before speaking again. "What's the occasion?"

If it had been a happier time, Nathan would have clicked his heels together and shouted his joy to the world. But these are dark days, and try as he might, he can't shake the weight of his desperation from his eyes.

"I don't.." He swallows hard and scratches at the back of his head. "I'm her brother."

She chewsdown her food as she watches the agitation flit across his features, enough time for her to clean the bone of all muscle and tendon before receiving his answer.

Her eyes go a bit wider than mere surprise would elicit, her upper body tilting for a full "Ohhhhhhh!" Her smile goes wide, the dimples perhaps distracting from the apprehensiveness that sits it a little wider than she'd intended. Lordy, her teeth were shiny.

"Oh wow!" She wipes her hand clean on her napkin before extending it to the fellow, a bit suddenly, a bit stiffly. "I'm Zofie, by the way. Yeah, she lives on the coast, west of here n' a decent drive south. Cool as all , your sister."

He hasn't felt so nervous since his kid was born, and that's saying something. His eyes land on those teeth and then quickly dart to a nearby sign announcing some garage band's gig.

This has been a lot easier than he had expected, and now all he has to do is wait for the bottom to drop out. His wits gathered, but still reeling from the news, Nathan brings his pale eyes back around to Zofie and smiles. It's hesitation and relief; desperation and elation.

"Hey Zofie. I'm Nathan." He takes her hand and gives it a shake- not too long. He isn't That Guy. His chin lifts to an empty chair across from her.

"Do you mind..?"

The handshake seemsto do a fair amount to settle Zofie's nerves about interacting with the fellow, her posture just slightly turning more to face him. It is still a dangerous proposition, considering the gold tank top's lack of subtlety in both composition and neckline, but nevertheless, she bobs a nod that rustles her dreads as she extends a hand to the seat indicated by his chin.

"Go right on ahead! N' help yourself to the haunches there. I'm not sure what the exact rules are on mythical creatures, but the back half I think is at least close to kosher, if y'keep to it."

Nathan drops his backpack by the table and takes the seat with a slightly relaxed sigh; the sound of a person who has been on their feet all day. At the offer of food, he shakes his head, his growling stomach providing a counterpoint.

"No thanks. I'm way too nervous," his mouth stretches into the exact expression one might use when overhearing a particularly scathing remark from one stranger to another.

The neckline of her top doesn't go unnoticed. Apparently he and his sister do have something in common. "Has she ever mentioned me? No..that was a stupid question. She doesn't know about me." One brow creeps closer to the other. "Are you close to her, Zofie?"

His dreams are usually the most endearing mixture of filthy and weird; the kind of strange that a man who enjoys the kinkier aspects of his psyche can really get behind.

But tonight his dreams center soley on his mother. They remain blessedly lucid lest his mind decide to play of a rousing, soul scarring game of Oedipus Complex with him.

Yael appears exactly as she did when he was a child. A lovely, soft spoken woman with long hair as dark as a raven's wing. Her eyes are almond shaped, pale brown and filled with a lingering sadness that, despite itself, makes her all the more beautiful. A gentle soul riddled with holes by bullets of despair.

She is in the dark dress she had worn on the day that his father died. Nathan had been ten years old and a handfull to put it kindly.

"You've found your sister," she says, her voice etheral; ghostly. It draws a shudder through Nathan's sleeping form. "My brave boy. My little hero. You've done what I had always longed to do."

And scenes flash before Nathan's eyes. His mother crying at night. The plans she had made with his father to return to Portugal to retrieve Nathan's half sister. The despair that came with the passing years when that dream grew stale, when the climate of Portugal grew somehow even more inhospitable for the Jews.

"I'm not sure she wants to be found, uma." He takes her hands into his and squeezes them for dear life, well aware that Yael- the real Yael- has been in her grave for centuries. That smarts.

"Everyone wants to be found." She inclines her head sadly and sighs, the scent coasting on her breath one of rot and funeral flowers. "You?"

"I'm lost. I don't think I can be found anymore, uma. I feel like I'm sinking in quick sand."

And suddenly he's that little boy again, the same little tyke finding solace in his mother's embrace. She holds him close and suddenly he's overwhelmed by her corpse scent, but dead or not, she's his mother, and he won't vomit. He owes her that much.

"You will find your place. Tell her that I did not stop thinking of her. Tell her that I died with my little Almonda on my mind."

"I will. I promise."

And when he wakes up, tears streaming down his cheeks, Nathan is crestfallen to find that he's holding only air.

"I promise, uma", he whispers, wiping at his eyes with a fistfull of sheets.

One would think that a person so old, one who has seen so much history, would enjoy talking about themselves. Nathan is not that person. It's a failure of his, he knows (and if he didn't, countless therapy sessions with Bethany would be more than happy to remind him), but sitting in that room across from his sister, the words roll off his tongue like honey from a spoon.

"I was thirty two, but I'd already figured it out. You live in a world where the cold makes cheeks all nice and rosey, and bloodless folk, they stand out." His hands bounce upon one knee, aided by the jittery movements of his leg. A nervous tick. "I can't even remember her name- isn't it weird how that happens? Sometimes the most important people lose their names in your head- but she was always surrounded by boys. I thought she was a hooker, but I don't care how good you are in the sack, it can't buy the kind of loyalty these guys had for this girl."

Mona's expression is thoughtful; distant. If a person didn't know any better, they'd have every right- in that instance- to mistake the pale little creature for one of those high quality, super creepy ball jointed dolls. Nathan shakes his head, that image far more unsettling than the knowledge that Mona is a vampire, and he continues after stealing a sip of water from the glass resting on the bedside table.

"I figured it out. Oh man did I figure it out. A week in and she spilled everything to me, even showed me how she fed them. She didn't call them ghouls though, but I guess you didn't either. Anyway, wasn't long before I decided to try it, and then that lead to another few minutes at her wrist, and another and another. Soon I was one of those men hanging around her, and I didn't think the world could get any better."

"But here's the thing. I didn't even notice time passing. I mean, sure, I was aware of things like changes in fashion, changes in leadership; stuff like that. But I can't tell you that I noticed children growing up and dying of old age, because I really didn't."

Nathan looks down at the lines marking his palms. "But then Ol' Whats-her-face bit the big one, and all of the little lackies drifted away or died because they couldn't figure out how to get more. That's when I knew I'd been at it for too long and that I didn't want to be someone's lapdog forever."

Something like familiary flashes behind Mona's eyes, but it is so quick that Nathan begins to wonder if he's just imagined it. A trick of the light.

"I'd already been doing a lot of traveling. Actually came to Evora once to try to find your headstone, but I couldn't. Mostly because the Jewish cemetery had been turned into grazing land. You weren't in the Catholic one, either, and good luck if you ever try. Portugal is lousey with Silvas."

"Anyway, I met a few vamps who helped me out, but for the most part no one wanted to just give me their blood without something in return. I couldn't go back to how I was around that chick."

Mona nods her head in understanding, her hands busying themselves with the varied but sad contents of her brother's wallet. "You're not telling me what I do not know, Nathan. We know you became a ghoul, we know you are still a ghoul. You have a wife and a kid.."

"How did you....?"

She holds a small photo up; one of a smiling Nathan holding Henry while Bethany beams at his side. Nathan frowns. "Oh. Well, not wife. Not anymore."

Mona snickers and pockets the photo without thinking. "Anyone ever told you that you are a downer?"

Nathan sighs with all of the emotion of a hearbroken teeanged girl while falling back against the bed. "Story of my life."

March 21, 2015

Nathan knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who can get hold of any book, no matter how rare, no matter how well guarded, for the price of a normal human being's life savings. Nathan is lucky in that regard. Though a man who once prided himself upon working, his bank accounts- all seven of them- are well padded.

Time. She needs time. Usually such a request wouldn't matter, but Nathan's life is ticking away from him more and more, and though Big Sis is reluctant to anty up her deets, Nathan is a stickler for research.

Amidst the records he's found on his own- ancient things saved but for the advent of the Internet and some quick thinking cleric's boner for history- he finds her name and his mother's, all of the way back to his maternal grandparents Nechimiah and Afriat (called Ramona by the kindly doctor who had adopted her when her parents succumbed to The Plague).

He finds records of Nechimiah and Yael's exile from Portugal, the church registration of his mother's marriage to his father, but nothing else regarding Mona.

So he contacts his friend of a friend of a friend, lays everything he knows out crystal clear while the dusty voiced fellow hems and haws on the other end of the phone. When the man falls quiet, Nathan glares at the receiver in his hand as if the man will feel his irritation if he tries hard enough.

"Your problem is you are looking for a human girl. Your sister, she is not a human girl, correct?"

Nathan rolls his eyes and snickers. "No. Vampire. I don't know if she's Kindred or Cainite."

"You don't need to know. You give me a few days and I'll get you what you need, my friend. You ain't gonna like what it's gonna cost ya."

Nathan stares at his poor wallet, his bank cards mocking him from within. "Eh. Any idea what that's gonna be?"

"50,000."

His mind skids to a stop and he opens and closes his mouth. "...50,000 what?"

"Fish. What the hell do you think? Cold, hard American dollars to be delivered to me before you get your hands on what you need."

Nathan places the phone down, stands up and then loses his mind. His long limbs go everywhere and he nearly tears his shirt by pulling at it. Once he's calmed down, he flops back onto the bed, legs crossed, and picks up the phone.

Smooth.

"50,000..alright. You know what? Okay. But you better not screw me over."

The man on the other end laughs before hanging up with a click. Nathan drops his arms between his legs and stews. "The things I do for family."

April 4, 2015

''Where did you get all of these?"

Badgers frozen forever in mid-hiss, fish forever flopping on wooden plaques, right down to rats posed like little warriors, fists wrapped around clay swords, Mona's little Oreo colored Nash is jam packed with taxidermy.

Nathan is gobsmacked. Short of museums and the odd- very odd- collector, he has never seen so many stuffed animals. He has to look away, because even though their glass eyes are vacant, he feels like they're staring straight into his soul.

Mona smiles a devious smile and cozies the car into an empty, weed eaten parking lot, dark but for one pitiful, sputtering streetlight. Turning to face her brother, she places a finger against her lips. Shhhhh...

Both of the hooligans look from side to side to make sure that no one is watching them. A few clicks of their seatbelts later, and Nathan finds himself toddling alongside Mona, their arms burdened down with as many animals as they can carry. He peers over the rubbery red crest of a dead eyed rooster as passersby drift along like smoke on a breeze. Strange.

"Some of these are probably worth money, Mona."

Mona rolls her eyes and sighs. "You can always get money, Nathan. But money cannot buy the look of shock on someone's face when they find a deer head in their shower."

He wants to argue but he really can't. There's logic there that he just can't wrap his mind around yet.

His nerves ramp up when they approach a modest little home, the front yard strewn with brightly colored children's toys. Mona places her horrific treasures in a beat up Radio Flyer, and studies each one with a look bordering upon fondness. Nathan watches as she removes a moth eaten rabbit mount from the pile, and while he stands there shaking with excitement and dread, Mona saunters over the a child's sandbox as if she's delivering a newspaper.

Mortified and amused, Nathan can only bare witness to what she does next. Picking up a neon green plastic shovel, she digs a hole and carefully, thoughtfully, buries the rabbit up to its head in the sand.

Cold sweat beading upon his brow, his head slightly dizzy, Nathan sucks in a deep breath of air, and with it a lungful of dust. By the time he's finished coughing, Mona is standing at his side, a small hand gripping the handle of the wagon.

"There we go."

"You're kind of ****** up, you know that?"

And she laughs. Dear God does she laugh. It's sweet and sinister, and Nathan can't help but grin. He follows her as she makes a beeline for the sidewalk, the squeak of the wagon's wheels filling the air.

"Confidence schemes are easy, but first you have to have confidence, or at least be able to pretend at it."

Nathan watches Mona closely and takes the occasional sip of his whiskey. He's never been one for scamming people for a living, his own bag of lies almost too heavy to drag around. But his sister seems so animated, her eyes so bright when she speaks of these things, and it isn't until the dim light of his room catches her eyes that a word drifts from his brain to his tongue; grifter.

Mona throws her shoulders back and lifts her head high. "You carry yourself like you know what you are doing. You make eye contact," and her amber eyes lock onto Nathan's baby blues. "If you go into a college, you keep in mind that you are the most qualified teacher there even if you are not, you know?"

Nathan shakes his head and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, the burn of his last shot of whiskey still a smokey phantom upon his tongue.

"You are good at history, no?," his sister continues. "You lived it but no one will give you a chance if you look so sad all of the time. Do what I said to you and you will have a new job."

"Thanks, Mona. I'll give it a try. I miss teaching." He rolls his glass between his palms. "When am I going to meet this Bart guy?"

The light in Mona's eyes softens and her smile turns bashful; a change that surprises Nathan more than he will let on. She glances down at her shoes. "Bartolomeo? Soon. He..he is a very busy man."

Words leap from Nathan's mouth and he can't take them back. "Do you love him, Mona?"

She stares at him and he knows that look, knows that her blood feels like ice water pumping through her dead veins. "Sim sim. Of course. He is my best friend."

He's made her uncomfortable and he knows that, so he tries to remedy it the best way that he knows how. "Think it'll end up as something more?"

"Why would it? Soulmates do not always get married. You think he should drape his football jacket over my shoulders or something?"

Nathan blinks and drains his glass with a wince and a hiss. "I..said the wrong thing again, huh?"

Mona looks down at her hands, studies the way her fingers curl and uncurl.
When she doesn't speak, he tries to think of what he wants to say and he watches the way his glass captures the light. "The world would probably be a lot easier if people thought that way. Me? I'm a one trick pony."

Mona scrunches her face up in a nearly ugly, sour apple scowl. "I like his company," and suddenly she's grinning, her eyes shining as if she has all of the knowledge in the world hidden away in that pretty little skull of hers. "He makes me happy, but we do not belong to one another, not in that way. We are not property to be owned. That's a dangerous game. Bad juju, little brother."

It's going deep, and Nathan pours himself a few more fingers of hooch, his mind a jumble of words. He's enjoying the conversation because, deep down, he knows that there are reasons why people like Mona rarely talk. They are observers, and thus he believes it's important, with all of his heart of hearts, when the listeners of the world speak. "It works for people all of the time."

The little brunette studies her sibling and nods her head in agreement. "Of course it does, but what are such labels to me? He has my back, I like to think I have his. But boyfriend, girlfriend? Husband? Wife? Words to me. To me. It is like when people speak of the social status, their lineage. My eyes, they grow fuzzy."

Nathan watches as she backs towards the door . "...you know you can leave if you want to, right?"

She seems to study him, her hand hovering over the doorknob. "Sim about that..." And she's already sauntering down the hallway when Nathan stands up. He scratches his head and then gives it a shake.

"Can't even be mad."

April 8, 2015

He still hasn't received that call from his contact. By the time the package shows up outside of his door, Nathan has nearly forgotten his request and the money he thought he had wasted.

He nearly trips over it on his way to drink his breakfast. It's pretty standard; a thick, bookish parcel wrapped in brown butcher's paper and laden down with stamps. He looks down one end of the hall and then the other just to make sure this isn't a joke before recoiling back into his room with the parcel held out at arm's length as if it contains a bomb.

He tries to be gentle with the unwrapping, but Nathan's excitement gets the best of him, and he tears into the paper like a child unleashed upon a birthday present. A book. A very thick, very old book. No title. Musty smell.

He flips through it. Everything, every last word, is in Portuguese. And not just Portuguese, no, but older than the hills Portuguese. Nathan frowns, but Nathan is nosey, and so he turns on the lamp by his bed, turns off his phone and hunkers down for what will surely be a long night.

The next thing to catch his eye are the sketches. Beautiful weathered images complete with handwritten captions. He recognizes Mona. She's wearing a dress with ornate embroidery on the sides; vines peppered with roses and tangled around strange looking ankhs covered in thorns.

He doesn't know the other subjects of some mad ghoul's whimsy, though he studies each sketch and marvels at the beauty of their details with an art critic's eye. In each one, somewhere amidst the embroidery and in a variety of ways, is the same horrible ankh; most of them hidden just ever so much. Blink and you'll miss it. Most of them visible enough to be a dare.

Nathan closes the book and looks across his dimly lit room. Sabbat. A shiver snakes up his spine and the color drains from his face. He's had a run in or two with that particular sect, and only after he had escaped with his life and most of his fingers had he learned that the ones he had crossed had been gentle.

He swallows hard and eyes the bedside table for a moment before standing up and throwing the book through his open closet door. He closes the door and goes one step beyond by sliding the table against it, lest the tome try to escape.

"I'm way too sober to read you right now, pal. We'll try again tomorrow."

He doesn't lay down with his back to the closet, but he doesn't lay with his back to the room door either. Instead he sinks into his chair by the window and stares between splayed fingers.

"What have you gotten yourself into, you stupid bastard?"

"It isn't about the ghouls remembering it. It is to make sure that we do not forget."

Nathan sits up board straight as Mona's voice drifts to his ears. He can hear his heart beating, can feels his nails digging into the leather encasing the book. He tries to appear cool, unafraid, and he fails miserably. Mona, leaning against the doorframe, arms over her chest, can sense his fear as easily as one might hear the shortlived boom of fireworks.

"Why did you go snooping?"

Nathan watches her with large, fearful eyes, while his lunch threatens to have a reunion with his mouth. "Y-y-you're a monster...all of these things.."

"Are in the past," she chides in a tone that invites no argument. "Did you think me sweet, Nathan? Loving? Caring?"

He tries to speak, to say anything other than what comes out, each word dragging guilt in its wake. "You can't be those things and be the thing in this book."

She lifts one brow but otherwise she remains still. "Oh? You say this, so you must believe that people cannot change. The man who killed vampires in order to steal their blood is still that man?"

He blinks, and that's when she snarls, causing him to junk. "Are. You. Still. That. Man. Nathan?"

"No!" He shouts, realizes his folly and then lowers his voice. "I haven't been that guy in a long time."

Mona purses her lips together, shifts them into one corner of her mouth and rolls her eyes to stare sidelong into the beyond. "Mm." She nods. "But since I do not have a pulse, I must still be a monster."

"It..it. Well, you're not a hero, are you?"

His sister rolls her eyes and pushes herself away from the door with one foot.

"I'm done talking to you, idiota. You think about what you have said here and hope I do not. Brother or not, you disrespect me like that again? I will have your bolas," and one hand comes up in an animated claw, her eyes livid and feeding teeth visible,"in a jar on my bookshelf."

Nathan instictively crosses his legs and stands up; to apologize or run or piss himself. "Mona..I.."

But his sister abandons him there, a cheery middle finger a substitute goodbye.

April 10, 2015

It doesn't help his nerves when there's a knock at the door. He's caught between wanting it to be Mona and the lifeblood running through her dead veins and hoping like hell that it isn't. Pulling his blankets up to his chin, he closes eyes, but the knocking doesn't stop. It only increases in frequency.

Worming his way out of his bed, a bloodshot eyed Nathan throws on the royal blue robe hanging from a bedpost and shuffles slowly to the door. On the other side stands the most striking redhead he has ever seen. Tall and long legged (though the denim short shorts she wears gives the illusion of them being longer) with a thick mane of dark copper hair and a smiley face tee, its happy expression at odds with the scowl on her lips.

Out of habit Nathan looks from one end of the hall and then the other before locking eyes with the stranger. He notices that one green eye is darker than the other. "Can I help you, miss..?"

"Valk," a quick English snap. Posh. "Abby Valk. I'm here on behalf of your sister."

"My sis.."

Before he can finish, Abby pushes her way past him and he freezes if only because of the nature of her audacity. When he turns around he finds the woman sitting cross legged in his armchair (and he notes how easily those legs could wrap around his arse). He opens his mouth to speak, to ask if Mona has hired her to do him in, only for her to silence him with a quick raise of her hand.

"Don't look at me as if you've seen the bogeyman. Your sister asked me to help you while she's gone."

His brows raise up. "Where.." he blinks at him hoarse his voice is, clears his throat and tries again. "Where is she?"

Abby removes a knife from one of her belt loops, and at that moment Nathan swears that his testicles have retreated to his throat. She seems..charmed..by his fear, and when she smiles there are too many teeth. "You know, for Mona's brother, you're quite the jumpy thing. Yes, very skiddish. I assure you that I'm not here to take your life, Mister Kay. Your sister would not be so sloppy as to send someone else to do her dirty work."

Nathan nods and watches Abby drag the blade across the palm of her hand, and by the time the wound begins to weep blood, he's shaking. A junkie's tremors.

Her expression unchanging save for a wince to acknowledge the pain, the gingersnap lifts her hand above the whiskey glass by the lamp, makes a fist and unclenches it to get the blood pouring before the cut heals itself.

"We do favors for one another, Mona and I."

Nathan can't tear his eyes away from the slowly filling glass. "...what sort of favor does she owe you for this?"

That shark's smile again. "Oh, darling, that is for me to know and for Mona to find out."

April 15, 2015

He meets Mona?s friends and finds that Bart Fitzroy is good company. He?s still high when he gets back to his room, his head hazy with boo, but he?s comfortable in his bed and more relaxed than he?s been in quite some time. That night Nathan doesn?t dream, and what a relief that is. Just the bliss of oblivious slumber. When he wakes up the next morning, Nathan takes his usual a.m piss, brushes his teeth and downs as much water as he can to soothe his cotton mouth.

At ease with himself and the world, at least for the time being, Nate Kay calls Bethany back and by the grace of God he manages to smooth things over. Even congratulates her on her upcoming nuptials; even means it. For his efforts he is rewarded with a brief conversation with Henry, and that's just dandy.

By the time he returns to his room he's still riding high on his good cheer and he hasn't had a lick of booze. Just water and actual food, and his body is happy for it despite the ever-present tug that grinds in the back of his head; that clarion call that all ghouls know. Blood. Blood. Need need need. But he's smart enough, aware of his body enough, to know that he has a few days before that craving becomes something far worse.

But the universe has a surprise for him, and when he opens the door to reveal a stoic faced Mona sitting in his chair, he kicks himself for not having known.

She doesn't seem angry, doesn't seem happy. For all intents and purposes, her shoulders slumped and her face cradled in her hands, his sharkish sister appears defeated.

"Mona? Is everything alright?" Because he's still approaching a mercurial animal, and he keeps his tone gentle lest she turn against him.

She waves for him to join her, and Nathan sinks down on the end of his bed and watches her with his head cocked curiously to one side.

"You have shaved," she mutters. "It is a good look on you."

He smiles a little smile and strokes his cheek. "Yeah. It's weird not having my beard."

Mona nods her head but she says nothing, not for a full five minutes, and by then Nathan is squirming; a restlessness felt in the marrow of his bones.

"I want to talk to you, Nathan. I want you to understand."

"Understand what?"

"That you are never going to understand."

Nathan sits there and stares at her, still having a hard time trying to reconcile the girl in front of him to the monster he had read about. "I'm not trying..."

Mona's eyes narrow for a second. "You are not meaning to try, no, but you want to understand the people around you so badly. I did a lot of bad things back then, and hopefully I will never have to do them again. Most days, eh, I at least attempt to be decent." She shrugs one shoulder. "I know the reasoning behind what I did, but I see no reason for you to know."

Nathan nods and just as he's about to give up, a light bulb goes off over his head. "You said that if I gave you time, you'd give me a story."

She circles him, places a hand on his shoulder and grins. "Oh, sim sim," he doesn't see her roll her eyes when she turns away from him, "you got me. Fine, a story. There was a girl, there is always a girl. This girl she walks to the door and..." The room door closes behind her, abruptly ending her narrative and making sure that Nathan sits there, stewing in his silence.

May 2, 2015


When he tells Mona about the apartment, his heart still pounding in fear, she does the only thing she can do; loudly make fun of him.

It isn't that she's mocking his fear, but the way he explains the story, how very animated he becomes, and though he had, at first, taken it to heart, he doesn't now. He even laughs along with her, because yeah, it's silly, but they know how dangerous the unknown can be. It's a school they've both had the honor of graduation from.

When the mirth at Nathan's expense dies down and things become Super Serious, he shifts his pale blue eyes to his sister's face. "But really, I never knew that trying to find a place would be this hard."

Mona sits upon his television set as primly as a queen upon a throne, the sound mute but the static snow reflecting off of the pale flesh of her legs. Though she's still grinning, she seems thoughtful and concerned, because over the months she really has come to care for her little brother.

"Bart and me are going to Indiana. You can stay in the house, if you want. There is lots of food and we need someone to watch the animals during the day anyway."

Nathan looks down at her feet, touched, and though he is about to humbly refuse, the sight of one of his rodent roommates staring at him from the edge of his underwear drawer tosses all modesty out the window.

"Sure! I can look for a place while I'm there, right?"

Mona peers down at her fingernails, her head tipped to one side.

"Certo. Be mindful of Tegan, Nathan."

Tegan, right. The new bird. He sketches her a salute to show that he understands and shoots around the room in a flurry of activity. He grabs what he owns- which isn't much, truth be told- and piles it into the middle of his bed. Mona watches all of this with a cat's simple fascination, and when he jerks one of his shirts from beneath her, she simply shakes off the intrusion and goes back to enjoying The Nathan Kay Variety Hour.

Everything is stuffed haphazardly into a black duffel bag (the replacement for the poor, shredded backpack that he had arrived to Rhy'din with), and once he is finished Nathan stands proudly with it in his arms; his smile fit for the face of a new father.

"Alright, sis. I'm ready to go."

Oh. Hell. Naw.

Nathan stares for a split second at the creature, his brain scrambling to make sense of what it is he's seeing. His hand is having none of that mess. Before his stomach can empty its contents into his tighty whities, Nathan's hand shoots up and slams the door shut, drawing a loud ruckus from the two birds and a lion's roar of a bark from Hallah.

Though Nathan is by no means a stupid man- he is incredibly 'book smart', his common sense is a precarious thing, and his mind immediately jumps to the idea that it is the beast downstairs that holds the responsibility for the animals' unease.

His heart pounding in his chest, the blond man stumbles back and back and back until he collapses onto the couch. "That wasn't real, Nathan," he says once he can catch his breath. "Wasn't real. Wasn't real, wasn't real. Mona would have told you about a gho- wait," he wraps himself up in the blanket, producing a tightly bound Nathan Burrito. "No she wouldn't have," he spits. "She'd think this was funny!"

The stairs seem to creak slowly just after Nathan clears the air to speak. Hallah rumble-rurrrrs at the door and sits upright, her ears perked to attention. Batata and his new friend both bob and Wark!twirddlrrHraAAK up a storm on the respective perches. The knob turns slowly on the basement door, creeeeeaaaaking open to reveal the same angular blue-white face from the bottom of the stairs, turning more to stark porcelain in the ambient light. The eyes, however, become more clearly black.

Unfortunate, however, is the manner in which the lengthy bangs hide the tilt of brows in concern as the strangled, hoarse rasp of a voice chokes out its words. "Are you well, sir?"

Nathan is going to die. He's going to die. Breathing becomes and a struggle and he's going to die. It's a good think Mona isn't here. She would have questioned, loudly, how he had managed to survive five centuries with a spine so yellow.

He moves the blanket just enough to peer out at the creature, and every bit of color is gone from from his face. He looks to Hallah, who he is sure will freak out (he's watched those ghost hunting shows) and validate his fears. But Hallah pads across the room, smacks Nathan in the face along the way with her wagging tail, and all of her two hundred plus pounds rises up and her huge front paws rest upon the monster's stomach.

Wordlessly the creature brings her hand, her long, black nailed hand, down to slip into Hallah's fur, scratching from her crown to the ruff of her neck in stern-handed rubs that lower the dog's lids and leave her mouth agape in joyous pants. The other hand settles on the door's frame, wrapping around to brace as Hallah drops down and trudges off to her water bowl.

The scene puts him at ease, only barely, and Nathan draws his blanketed legs to his chin. "..no.." he finally squeaks out. Manfully.

"What ails you?" Her rise to the last step sees her duck down to clear the door's frame, her lengthy body clad in a long, bell-sleeved gown of black, embroidered subtly at its seams in the same shimmering shade of night as her navel-length hair.

She rises to stand a good three inches taller than the door. "You must be Nathan. I've heard ever so much about you." Her voice's rumble seems to swallow all of her otherwise conversational inflection.

Mona comes home to a quiet house and finds only her brother there, sitting on the couch. Batata watches her from beneath his cage across the room while Curacao does her obliviously happy little head bobbing dance on her perch.

From the basement she hears the happy squeak of Hallah's rubber steak, and when she listens very closely she can hear Tegan's words of encouragement as the great dog plays.

She greets Nathan with a smile, but the uneasiness that wafts from him like a bad smell settles like weights upon her small shoulders. So Mona shivers, clenches her fists at her sides and appears to him as if she is steeling herself from a blow; a familiar hit. It's doomed but it still strikes Nathan as impressive.

The moment he stands up, Mona somehow knows.

"..hey, little girl." An shaky greeting. A testing of the waters.

She holds her head up high, tips it back and stares him in his pale blue eyes. "Bom dia, Nathan."

She watches his adam's apple move as he swallows.

"Do you know someone named Anouk?"

Mona wishes she didn't for a variety of reasons, and perhaps if she doesn't acknowledge the connection- or her very tangled history with the woman's ex husband- then the news that teeter-totters on the tip of Nathan's tongue will simply cease to exist. But something inside of her makes her nod her head.

"So..you know Bakar?"

Another robotic nod. Nathan whistles out the air in his lungs.

"Bakar.." and with that name said, everything that follows sounds distant; a whisper through thick fog.

"Bakar is dead. He died in Barcelona. His childe, Helene, felt it and told Anouk. Anouk wanted you to know."

Mona doesn't say a word but it doesn't startled her brother. People react to this sort of news in a variety of ways. He's made the connection between them; between the mysterious bloke from her past who still owns at least a few acres of real estate in her heart and the man whose death had been lifted to his ears by a small, shark eyed french girl.

Nathan reaches out to touch her shoulder but Mona quickly steps out of his reach. "Mona.."

She smiles at him, a shudder winding from her shoulders and down to her toes, and it is a mercy, perhaps, that she doesn't link the Basque man's death with a silly wish made upon a star.

"Bakar died a long time ago," she says, her head turned to one side. Away from him. "I think he just realized it."

And Nathan watches as she moves back through the door to help Bart unload his car. Nathan goes into preparation mode as he stands there; a plan for when, and if, the news has sent a storm to brewing in his little big sister.

His eyes roll to the kitchen, to the half ajar door and the Cabinet O' Booze that it reveals.

"Console later, if she needs it, fangy beasty or not, but get drunk first."

No way in hell that could go wrong.

He just has to mention the word 'child' to Mona and she's going through her little book of contacts as if the very devil is prompting her to do so.

It isn't because she believes that her nephew should have a safe place to stay during his visit. Mona simply does not like children. Nevertheless, she finds Nathan a loft apartment in Dockside, a little studio shindig situated above a defunct tire shop. 500 silver a month, utilities included and no murders or ghosts to speak of. Nathan kicks himself for not asking for Mona's help sooner.

She doesn't help with the furniture, though, so he sends a wire offworld to one of his accountants, who dutifully lines his pockets with dead presidents a few hours later, and before he can really settle into his new digs, Nathan has his apartment furnished and paid for.

"I love you," he tells his sister, and the only reason he is able to pick her up and hug her is because she allows it. He even sways her from side to side to the tune of her slippers grazing the floor.

"I would love you more if you would let me go," she replies, and he drops her to her feet.

Chuffed and almost dizzy, Nathan steps back to give Mona some room lest she suddenly decide to liberate his eyes from their sockets. She moves to the long locker mirror hanging by the apartment's door and begins to groom herself; a dark lock tucked behind one ear here, a hank positioned there.

"So how have you been, little girl?"

She stops primping and watches his reflection. "Eu tenho sido bom."

And he wants so badly to ask about Bakar; to ask how she's feeling about his death. Maybe she senses it, that question hanging in the air, because her expression turns cold beneath the feigned warmth of a sudden smile.

"How old is your boy, meu irm?o?"

Resigned, Nathan lets his arms dangle between his knees. "He just turned three."

Mona repositions a silver feather adorned clip above her temple. "He your only one?"

Nathan swallows hard, the question a weird one; a bold one. But even if it isn't true, he feels as if he owes Mona. "Now? Yeah. I had two before I became a ghoul, two little girls, but they're gone now."

Mona turns to face him, not a dark hair out of place, and she lets her clasped hands dangle before her, the innocence of her sweet face no match for the darkness in her pale eyes. Nathan shivers.

"Two little girls," she muses. "Their names?"

Nathan claws at his memory, an extensive library, and finds what he's looking for beneath the faded faces of his daughters. "Ronja and Yael."

Whatever Mona had sought from this line of questioning she finds, because when she smiles again it is genuine, her nod approving. "I cannot remember the names of most of my sisters, meu irm?o, but you still remember yours girls. Your boy, he is lucky. One day when I forget his name, you will remember."

He looks confused but slowly he understands what she's saying. Nathan reaches for the remote and throws it over to her. Mona snatches it out of the air with ease. "You are so weird, Mona."

Thumbing the big red POWER button, she grins at his words and the hiss of television static. "We are both weird. Good thing we are pretty, no?"

Just outside of the little beach house that Mona shares with her BFF Bart, Nathan kneels down in front of his son. He looks at his chubby cheeks and big eyes and he smiles as he places a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey Buddy? Some rules, okay? Don't look up to Mona. She's not a role model." He brings his hand back, steeples the tips of his fingers to his lips in thought.

Henry is far too busy staring up in awe at a low flying seagull.

Nathan snaps his fingers to draw his attention back, and he then gives the sides of his hat a tug. "That's probably a bit too harsh. She's just..a bad role model."

"She your sister, daddy?"

The man nods. "Yeah..but don't look up to her."

"I look up to Superman!"

"Yeah ya do, and she's not Superman, okay? She's more like Silver Banshee."

Henry looks confused, but Nathan just shrugs it off and begins leading the little boy up the stairs.

Nathan is still fuming be the time he reaches Mona's. After a very -colorful- conversation with Beth about their son's newly learned vernacular, one Mr. Kay plays on loop what he will say when the dark haired little demon opens the door.

But a different monster greets him, a pale waif of a girl with badly dyed blonde hair and eyes as dark as topsoil. She's dressed like a gutter punk, her vest so replete with patches that only spots of denim shine through. Her tank top has been snipped right above her navel and her jeans are so riddled with holes that Nathan wonders if it is only by power of prayer that they do not fall to pieces.

She leans in the doorway, looks him over from head to toe, and smiles a devilish smile. Nathan can feel his resolve crumbling.

"Tall, blonde, big ears. You must be Nathan," she says, her voice an oddly lovely mixture of broken glass and honey, her accent not as heavy as Mona's but still evident.

"I, uh, yeah. I'm Nathan." While his heart begins to race, his mind teetering towards panic mode, the head in his pants is more than happy to react to the way she looks at him. "Is Mona here?" Boner killer right there. Thank God.

The woman shakes her head slowly, and there's something about her that Nathan hates. She's Kindred as she sure as he's standing there, and that's enough to put him on edge, but there's something else; something terribly false about her.

"She is out with her pet human. Or is it the other way around? I cannot tell." She steps to the side and waves him entry. "Come in though. She should be back soon, no?"

Nathan drifts through the door as if stuck on autopilot. Later on, tangled up in the sheets of the guest room's bed, his neck still slick with his blood and thighs sticky from their unexpected coupling, Nathan will realize that he doesn't even know the name of this woman.

The sun is out though. Too little too late.

The bouquet of bacon wrapped, stick stabbed chocolates miraculously make it all of the way to the warehouse's large doors before they begin weeping from the heat. Nathan knocks three times and turns around to look at the passersby and sucks a spot of melted candy from the webbing connecting his thumb and forefinger. Dressed in a plain white tee and a pair of jeans, his feet clad in humble black and gray sneakers, he slowly brings his had away from his mouth, eyes agog (out of propriety and the need to be polite) at the cat headed woman walking arm in arm with a two headed man.

It isn't all that long before the inner door to the warehouse's vestibule is opened, albeit all on its own, followed by a sudden swish from a tangled curtain of pink hair. Zofie seems to emerge from beneath her own locks, pushing them aside to show the simple black square frames of her glasses and a ratty Iron Maiden tank top paired with denim capris torn to the point of being a perfect accessory for The Hulk. She seems to skitter to the door more than walk, peeling the treated glass of the front door back and waving Nathan in silently, at least until a little rumbling clear of her throat frees up her voice.

"You're an Absolute Life-Saver, Mister Nathan."

From beneath her seeming upheaval, she still grins warmly up to Nathan as she plucks one of the bacon-chocolates up and pops it into her mouth, the ball of a bare foot splatting against the inner door to keep it open.

"It's the chocolate and bacon, really," he admits. Cheeky devil. "I'm just it's sidekick."

He ducks his head and shifted inside. He offers the bouquet out to her and smiles, nothing about the way he looks or the way he presents himself hinting at his concern for the pink haired girl.

"Tegan let me go for the night, so I figured I'd visit my pal," he continues.

He looks up slowly, seemingly entranced by the sheer size of the warehouse (and, truth be told, by how small the space makes Zofie seem).

"So how have you been, Trouble?" An inquiry complete with a tilt of his head.

For as frazzled as she seems, Zofie's posture hasalready become more relaxed since Nathan has shown up. Still, she has chipped paint stuck to her usually fantastic nails, not to mention a bit of dirt still present under all twenty of them. The warehouse is still fantastically arranged, with a little 'den' cleared out not far from the door with two beat-up couches, one Swedish Modernist piece of something that could pass as a chair, a few lamps set near walls for indirect light and her flat-screen TV above her little computer desk and the mini-fridge. She lifts each bacon-chocolate-flower-thing slowly, chewing and grunting in joyful consideration of each one as she tumbles over the arm of one couch to lay, at first, before tucking in her legs to allow Nathan to sit.

"I've been," and she takes a deep breath through her nose as she fumbles for the remote, pressing a few buttons to turn on a soft background-noise of Led Zeppelin's Rain Song at a low enough volume not to disrupt conversation. "I'm? likely gonna end up just word-barfin', so before that happens, How've you been, Danger?" She pokes him in the side with her toes to punctuate.


He takes the seat next to her and turns to face her, though his upper body remains in a backwards lean to give her her space. The question wrenches his gaze from her nails and plants his baby blues dead on the lenses of her glasses, and the Screen O' Death color of her own eyes.

"I've been fine. Running around with Tegan, getting things ready to amscray." So what's the deal, pickle? He holds one finger up. "A weird question. Where do you keep your nail polish?"

It should be noted that Nathan is a pretty weird dude, and being a pretty weird dude meant that Zofie's neglect of her nails did not go unnoticed. Indeed, they sent warning bells a'ringing in his head. SNAFU. Situation Normal, All Bleeped Up.

While Zofie doesn't seem to register his stare at her nails, she does, however, start scritching at the last few bits of iridescent silver that still cling to them with her thumbnail absently, in between bites of the bacon-chocolate. She eventually shifts to let one leg drop off of the couch with the opposite foot tucked under its knee, bringing down the shield of her legs from between her and Nathan, even as his own search of her eyes has her looking around all squirrely for a moment.

Then she tilts her chin back with a sweet little smile, quietly taking herself a moment to absorb the endorphins and caffeine from the chocolate, sent on the vector of the bacon's fat in quiet bliss. "Aww, Te-gan. Glad I finally met her after hearin' so much about 'er. I really, really hope y'all kin git back here t'visit."

Her brows furrows at his raised a finger, her lips pursing off to the side before she pointed to her computer desk. "Oh! I keep 'em in the first drawer on th' right. Makes more sense t'me t'let it dry while I'm watchin' screeners n' dailies n' cartoons than in the bathroom, which is, incidentally, past the figurines on the left, if y'need t'use it at enny point."

Nathan unfolds his legs and stands up, causing various joints to crack in protest; a reminder of how old he is and how close it is to feeding time.

"I'll keep that in mind. I've been known to use the bathroom from time to time," he says gravely.

Zofie follows Nathan's rise from his seat by flattening the sole of her dangling leg against the floor, letting her eyes catch up to settle on him after she senses his weight's shift.

He reaches the drawer while Zofie's thick drawl is still fresh in his mind.
Nathan finds himself presented with a wild collection of colorful bottles.

"And Tegan? She's a sweetheart." He plucks up a thing of orange polish charmingly dubbed Orange You Hot? and then resumes his search. "I wouldn't wanna get on her bad side though. She's really tough."

The fondness in his voice cannot be ignored, but it is lighthearted and chaste. He chooses his final selection, the more conservatively called Cornflower and shuts the drawer.

"Phew, you're tellin' me!" Zofie says with a nod. "Tegan uh? she kin git downright scary in the quietest little ways. I'm incrrredibly thankful she did end up wakin' up to meet Splatterson."

Nathan smiles. "Thank God for that cat. But yeah, I'm pretty sure we'll be back. I can't leave my sister like that and you're probably the best friend I've had in a long time."

Armed with the bottles and a little pot of acetone, Nathan returns to his seat and takes her hand in his like some fairytale prince charming; one with a strangely keen eye for colors.

"I'm gonna do this for you," he explains, "and not just because I like painting nails..because I really do. I need a favor, okay?" His dark blonde brows furrow, his expression Very Serious. "What goes on here between you and me, it doesn't leave this warehouse."

He thumbs the lid from one bottle, balances it against the little pot of polish remover, and then repeats the action with the other before finally ridding the pot of its top. "I would like you to talk to me. You never let your nails get this bad."

She nods at his request, her lips folding in and dimples flaring out of the sheepishness in her expression before bringing both heels back onto the couch and settling with a quick huff of a sigh through her nose. "I kin do that? Uhm? hm. It's gonna be a bit of tellin', just as a heads up?"

With her hand in his, Nathan removes the pad from the pot, the stench strong enough to perhaps tell the polish that it isn't fooling around. Wiping the cracked paint from one nail, he peers up at her, one eye half obscured by a wayward hank of honey hair.

"I've got time, Zofie."

(This was Part 1. Part 2 is down below. Edited from play with Zofie's awesometastic player.)

Nathan harangues Mona into spending time with him before he leaves. All that it takes is a pretty thrift store dress placed in a shoebox and wrapped in newspaper, and BAM! Sibling bonding time extravaganza. In fact, he decides to tell Mona that that's what he's calling it.

"Sibling Bonding Time Extravaganza!"

Mona stops admiring the dress in the mirror and peers through the halo of pot smoke surrounding Nathan. "You are a very big dork."

He wags his spliff at her and grins a cheese eating grin at her. "So sayeth Little Miss Hammer Horror. But come on, Mona. For serious. I've like..I've wanted to hang with you, just you, for awhile now, and who knows when you'll see me again."

Mona's eyes widen, and what is that? Is that sentiment he spies? He raises up from his seat on the floor to get a better look, then deflates when she plucks a tiny speck of something from her eye and flicks it away.

"Like the herpes, you will be back," she says while eying her reflection in the mirror. She seems perplexed by what she sees, much in the same way her parrots seemed confused by their mirror images. Nathan flashes a thoughtful smile at the realization.

"You say crap like that, but you'll miss me. I'll miss you."

Mona rolls her eyes, smooths the fabric down against her stomach. "But I will be there," she spouts mockingly, "in your heart. Always."

Nathan stands up, is about to give up, when Mona is just...not at the mirror anymore. Out of the blue she's hugging him, and even though he can tell that such a display of affection (aimed at anyone other than Bartholomew Fitzroy) is awkward for her, he's chuffed and he returns the embrace wholeheartedly.

He even dares to stroke her head. It's his understanding that Mona doesn't talk much because she doesn't have to; the way she moves, the impressive variety of expressions she possesses, do most of the speaking for her, and that hug is saying I'll miss you too. You are the best brother anyone could ever ask for and I look up to you.

Probably not that last bit, but Nathan is an imaginative guy.

She eventually steps back, a startled look on her face. "I was just.."

"Stealing my wallet. I know, Mona. Petty theft aside, you hugged me."

She shuffles from one foot to the other and stares intently at the ground like a child in trouble. Nathan is smiling like and idiot.

"Hey now weirdo, it's okay. Now, I just so happen to have a copy of Un d?a en Lisboa, and I haven't packed up my DVD player yet soooo.."

That gets her attention. He may as well have told her that he has the Holy Grail in his underwear drawer given how she looks at him.

"You know I love Soledad."

Nathan nods like a bobblehead doll. "I do. Now come on and let's watch it. I bet we can finish it before you have to go home."

Mona grips his hand, just three fingers, and she leads him straight to the DVD as if she has a sixth sense about campy old films. She lifts the disc from its case as it at any moment it will shatter and bridges the gap between the table and his television on her knees. Once the DVD is safe inside of its player and the power button is pushed, Mona scurries a few feet away from the screen (he worries about her eyesight, though he really shouldn't) and plops down with her hands on her ankles.

Nathan (who probably *should* worry about sitting that close to a television screen) opts to lounge of a lawn chair, courtesy of Zofie Kaminsky. "So I.."

Mona doesn't move, but she does bark at him. "Shhh, Nathan. Soledad."

He chuckles and cranes his neck to rest his head on his shoulder. "I love you too."

Nathan marvels at how much the land of his youth has changed. Three hundred years have passed, so of course it?s different, and Nathan watches the world drift by from the window of his taxi and he can barely remember what buildings had once stood there. He looks at a gaggle of redfaced teens in passing and starts speaking without realizing it.

?The young believe that everything is permanent. They don?t get that one day people will be trying to remember what a McDonalds looked like.?

The taxi driver peers at him through the rearview mirror, rolls his eyes and looks back to the road.

?Sooner or later,? Nathan continues, ?everything becomes history.

The sky is dark by the time the taxi pulls up to the field. Nathan grabs his hat, pays the driver and offers to double his tip if he?ll stay until he returns. The man nods his head. The night is chilly, and he zips his jacket up to his chin. He doesn?t have long, not with the possibility of his befanged companion already rousing from her sleep in their Gothenberg hotel, so he releases the chains binding the more vivid childhood memories he keeps, and allows them to lead him off of the path with its helpful signs and into the forest.

He can remember when almost all of it was woodland, when cars were something that only mad artists dreamt of and literal wolves came to the door. Now all that he hears aside from the chorusing cries of more sedate wild life mingling with his own footsteps is the hum of cars far off on the highway.

Nathan finds what he is looking for. Half a mile from the taxi, buried deep in the night black woods are weathered stones. They are all that remain of his childhood home. A shudder tears through him as he circles them, and he nearly leaps out of skin when he startles a red fox from where it lay hidden. It dashes off into the wilderness, leaving behind a half-eaten grouse. Nathan wanders away to a clump of trees, and he knows exactly where he is.

The family graveyard. The stones not destroyed by time and the elements are sparsely scattered around and indistinguishable from one another. Anyone else would wrongfully believe them to be no different than any other stone, but Nathan knows better. Yet even he would have a hard time remembering where all those dead Kjaerstads lay, his father among their number, but they are not the ones he is after.

Despite Sweden?s far more tolerant attitude towards his mother?s people, she was not laid to rest in the ancient Jewish cemetery. His father had been decades gone by the time his mother had passed, and had had no say in the matter, either. His father?s younger brother had shouldered the burden of his mother in her later years. By then his uncle was a senile old man himself, and he had grown disenchanted with religion and its trappings all across the board after a particularly brutal winter had stolen his wife and three young sons away.

When Nathan reaches the lone headstone, he finds a tree growing through the middle of Yael?s final resting place. It stirs within him certain feelings that have no place out here in the woods, and he pushes them back to concentrate on his reasoning for coming here in the first place.

?Hey. It?s..Nath..it?s Natanael.? He sniffles and tries to keep his voice level. ? Heeeyyyy, Mom.? He fails.

For as much as he has forgotten, his mother will never leave him. It?s bizarre to think how easily he can conjure up visions of her when time has erased all physical traces of Yael from the Earth. He blinks back tears and follows the line of the tree up to where its top brushes the sky.

?I talk to you a lot, but I figured I should visit. Just in case you don?t remember, I?ve found Mona. She?s?she?s tough. I don?t think I?ll ever figure her out, but I could never really figure you out either and that didn?t stop me from loving you.?

He removes a small box from his pocket and his fingers shake so badly that he?s afraid he?ll drop it. He doesn?t. Inside are things only important to him, and things he believes his mother would like. A wallet sized photograph of his son, Henry. Another of himself. A painting of a Sabbat dressed Mona ripped from the accursed diary of an insane old ghoul.

Moving to his knees, Nathan digs a small hole between two of the tree?s roots- tries not to think too hard about what had once nourished these roots- and he buries the little tin box there. Standing back up, he knocks the dirt from his pants and smiles.

?Well, there you go. I know I wasn?t the best son, and I can?t do right by you now, but I think about you a lot.?

When he turns and makes his way back to the taxi, he realizes that he hadn?t told Yael that he loved.

Somehow he?s sure that she already knows. Perhaps there is truth to that thought; perhaps it is Yael's love for her son and not his haste to return to his hotel that spares him from looking at the large sign that the taxi ferries them past.

THE FUTURE SITE OF LAGERBERG LUXERY HOMES!