Growing In the Dark

[deservesadaisy]

Who: Ivan and Ilde
What: Checking in.
Where: Ivan's apartment.
When: Sometime around Sukkardi, give or take.
Notes: None so far.
Warnings: Ditto.

Ivan hasn't been answering his CiD for a few days. In part because, even with Njoki's remedy, his face still feels terrible. In part, however, he's been thinking a great deal. He'd laughed off the growing anti-vampire sentiment for a time, but now it was clear to him that more was going on than simply fear and prejudice. By the time he was well enough to leave his apartment regularly again, he wanted to have a plan in mind, and he had little time for keeping up to date with the Network beyond news postings.

Comments

[rhinemaid]

The next question, she supposes, is who benefits from a destabilized Baedal? If they're all trapped in here, the answer could reasonably be 'no one', but that's still not the whole picture and she can see with a bit of thought how someone doesn't necessarily need to have a way out to stand to gain.

That's irritating.

"Well, they've mastered that part."

[deservesadaisy]

"Haven't they just." He exhaled. "Was there something you wanted, by the way?"

[rhinemaid]

Oh. Right. That, right.

"Not exactly." It's an evasion, but delivered in the same blandly serene way she says so many other things, the slight awkwardness behind her reluctance to explain herself not immediately as clear as it could otherwise be. She was irritated with herself about coming to check on him in the first place; having to admit she did it when he's more or less fine is not any less irritating.

"I had a late catch-up lesson, and some spare time after it."

[deservesadaisy]

"You simply missed my charming company then?" Ivan's not buying that she just happened to be passing by, but the way he presses is almost light, so she can pretend it's a joke, if she prefers.

[rhinemaid]

"Still missing it, actually. Our schedules must be out of sync." ...yes, well. She'd only sent him the two messages prior, it isn't like she's going to have to try and sneak onto his CiD and delete evidence of worry. (She's - probably - above that.)

[deservesadaisy]

"Well, my plans for the evenings were mainly trying to work out the conspiracy. Since you're already here, I can probably reschedule that." He raises his eyebrows. "Unless you've anywhere else to be."

[rhinemaid]

"I'm not uninterested in conspiracies." Considering her recent background, one would think. She's not uninterested in Ivan, either, which is convenient given that she's got a free evening to waste on his sofa. "I've still got unpacking to do, but it can wait, too."

[deservesadaisy]

"You're not put off by my hideous disfigurement?"

He really must be feeling better.

[rhinemaid]

"You do look like a monkey's arse, but I wasn't going to point it out." Because she's so considerate, presumably; they're very nice people. "Who fixed it for you?"

Ilde has never quite lost the habit of periodically rolling Ivan over and shaking him until information falls loose. As long as he continues being useful in that way, she probably won't, either.

[deservesadaisy]

"Njoki." It should be noted that his pronunciation is excellent. "I can give you her number if you want, though she tends to deal with people a bit less..." he gestures. "...alive. At least professionally."

[rhinemaid]

"That's fine. I wasn't asking for me." Isobel's CiD is unavailable, which probably means she's gone somehow (how would be something Ilde would very much like to know), which probably means she should check in on Katherine, too; it'd be good to have something useful to give her while she's there.

[deservesadaisy]

"Remind me before you go then, I'll jot it down." He could certainly push some business Ki's way, after her help. "You've a vampire in every port, eh?"

[rhinemaid]

"Like toy collectibles." Not at all like toy collectibles, actually, but she does have about or more than her fair share of acquaintances. Nonhumans, generally, are what Ilde gravitates to; it's probably a good thing for everyone that her largely unconscious impulse to go and stand beside the biggest monster is already helpfully satisfied by Sonja's mere existence. "I know a lot of magic-users, too, it's just habit."

The part where she's sleeping with Ivan is not quite the same.

[deservesadaisy]

"I see. I smoke cigarettes, and you dig up mages." Yes, precisely like that. "And what do you do with all these other vampires and such, once you find them? Catalog them for later or play with them yourself?"

[rhinemaid]

"I never saw the point of leaving something in its packaging." This is an interesting choice of metaphor, but she's curious more than anything to see where he intends to take it. "Do you have any cigarettes, by the way?"

[deservesadaisy]

"A few." They weren't growing on trees, in Baedal. "You've a craving, I take it?"

[rhinemaid]

She makes a 'little bit' gesture with finger and thumb, stretching out lengthways where she's been tucked up. "And I'm out." Is that a good excuse to have come over unannounced? It sounds plausible to her, but then, Ilde is a creature of impulse at the end of the day.

(It sounds much better than 'I was worried about my murderous vampire ... friend'.)

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan doesn't quite buy it, but he gets up to fetch them each a cigarette. He lights them both, like Paul Henreid in Now, Voyager, before handing one to her.

"Just think, if people were filled with cigarettes, anti-smoking efforts would have a whole new meaning."

[rhinemaid]

Rolling over onto her back, her head tipped back against the edge of the sofa, Ilde gives him a slightly blank look through the rising smoke of the cigarette she accepts. "That doesn't even make sense, Ivan." It does conjure some bewildering images, though, occupying her mind almost in spite of her.

"Where were you thinking of starting? In your conspiracy theories."

[deservesadaisy]

He shrugs, and sits beside on her on the couch. "Predators are an easy target - easy to make people fear. But once they've got everyone looking right, I want to know what's happening to the left."

[rhinemaid]

Ilde shifts when he moves, resting her head in his lap and settling her slightly-arched neck against his thigh, tapping ash off her cigarette into the nearby tray. "So who benefits when people are afraid of predators?"

[deservesadaisy]

"I'd guess the church, generally, but they don't seem religiously affiliated. The militia, perhaps. Whoever is actually in charge. Fear generally, but not always, helps the status quo."

[rhinemaid]

"I was in one of those hives, before the plague," she says, after a moment of thought. "The papers we found there had a lot of anti-xenian rhetoric. We cleared it out before..." The gesture here generally indicates something along the lines of 'blew it to kingdom come'. (That was Remy, mostly, but she likes to think her frank desire for destruction contributed helpfully in some small way.)

[deservesadaisy]

"Interesting. And if you wanted to start an anti-xenian campagin, predators would be a logical place to start. Easy to convince people they deserve to be rooted out." Not...entirely without reason, in some cases.

[rhinemaid]

"I wonder why," dryly. Whatever illusions she still has - and there are a few, some unconscious and some self-protective - her fondness for fangy collectibles has nothing to do with imagining that they're other than what they are. It's one reason why this whole thing sits so badly; being placed in the position of trying to defend the indefensible is aggravating on a number of levels, and she's getting too in the habit of interfering to entirely sit on her hands. "There's sentiment in the city to build on. It'd be a hop and a skip."