multiversallogs | Growing In the Dark

Entry tags:

Growing In the Dark

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.

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"In the long run, if you don't check yourselves, you'll still end up dead or starving." Crurovore dominance over a city like Baedal isn't exactly a practical long-term goal, even if they could achieve it.

"In the long run, if these people have their way, it won't matter whether we check ourselves or not: we'll still be dead and starving. And I trust you're clever enough to imagine how messy things could get in the meantime." Starve a bunch of predators and give them nothing to lose? Insane, but an effective diversion too.

"I wouldn't need to be clever." Not that she isn't, but if Baedal descended into a chaotic supernatural warzone, it'd be a bit more homey.

She sighs out smoke, shaking her head. "I still have the Candlelighter documents, if you want to see if it's connected."

"If you wouldn't mind my taking a look, I'd be interested," Ivan concedes. "I'm not sure yet what to consider, but I'm going to eventually hit the limit of what I can observe without venturing outside."

And he was going to need blood.

"I can make some more duplicates." After all, it's not as though she's got any particular reason to want information about those people - those people so curiously undiscussed in the media following the plague - kept discreet, even if she's inclined to be careful with the fact that she and Remy stole it and blew up a building. That's good sense.

"Thank you." He leans over her to rest his cigarette in the ashtray. "I can only hope they don't escalate faster than I can figure it out."

"What exactly are you planning to do? If you figure it out." If, when; either way. Ilde's expression isn't skeptical so much as inquisitive, in her somewhat understated way, as the whole mess unravelling in front of them seems like something that needs interfering with. She's just interested to know if he actually has anything in mind, as yet.

Other than laying low in his flat and being irritated.

"It depends on what the answer to what they want is. But they're clearly not just going to give me the option of ignoring it." Much as he'd like to. "I've no intention of making myself a special target, but even so."

"Mmn. A little less of the snide might help for starters." She might not ordinarily advise less sass, but in Ivan's case, it's not as though an argument can be made for him being misunderstood. He is, arguably, extremely well-understood, and that's about half the problem.

"Surprisingly, I managed to survive for a few centuries without your advice," he notes, dryly.

"So miracles do happen," she returns immediately, flippant. "Have you ever been maced with holy water before?"

"I can't say that I have, no." He sighs. "Though I suppose, if I'd stayed, it would be a matter of time."

He hasn't yet mentioned getting blown up.

Ilde vaguely imagined stakes or beheading might've been involved, when he told her he'd died (again); Baedal's already helpfully illustrated the fact that sunlight won't even give him a tan, for all that he's got an aversion. She's reminded of that by his phrasing, and wonders briefly if he's forgotten telling her - he was, she recalls, a bit sloshed at the time.

"What was going on?" she asks, after a moment.

He shrugs, dismissive. "Same as ever. People noticing, people unable to cope with what they saw. There, though, people have the luxury of making up some other explanation." No matter how much a citizen of Baedal might want to pretend otherwise, vampires and predators like them certainly existed.

"It should be taken away." Not that she's got some militant opinions on this particular subject, or anything- it's little wonder she's watching the unfolding crurovore situation with such attentive eyes.

"What should?" He glances at her, not instantly following. "The luxury? Self-delusion is one of the primary comforts most humans have left, at home. I imagine the apocalypse put a damper on it, though."

"A bit." ...yes. "What makes their ignorance so precious? Yes, I think the luxury should be taken away."

Admittedly, her political philosophy can largely be summed up with 'burn it all down and start again'; there's not a lot of sympathy here for humanity en masse, as opposed to the individuals.

"It's not precious," he says, simply. "It was generally convenient." But then again, she wasn't looking at them as prey, generally, to his knowledge.

...certainly not as often. (It's not unheard of, but it's also not her default assessment.)

"Well, if we ordered the world on what's convenient for vampires, we would be living in a shitty dystopia novel." Or like that movie with Ethan Hawke that doesn't exist in Ilde's world and thus cannot be directly referenced. "It's not convenient for anyone else."

"Oh Christ, I hate to imagine that." It was the world Herrick wanted, which means it can't be good. "Still. I don't suppose it much matters, at the moment, as I'm not going back to mine and the luxury is already gone in yours."

"And it's a different thing, here." There are, presumably, some valid reasons for supernatural secrecy; Ilde's personal experience of said secrecy hasn't really made her receptive to even discussing them. Baedal itself seems oddly like a middle-ground between her experience and Ivan's, knowledge sans apocalypse, but it's no corresponding utopia. (Always a concept she's found a little unsettling, anyway.)

She leans sideways, briefly, to put out what's left of her cigarette. "I saw Hellsing agents tearing down posters."

"Did you?" He considered. "I suppose that makes some degree of sense. It was their turf, wasn't it? Policing the monsters."

"Something like that." At this point, she's flicking idly through her CiD as they talk, pausing when she comes to Réjean's broadcast. Shoving an elbow backwards into his thigh for his attention, she tilts the screen. "Hey."

He reads it with a frown. "Damage control," he observes, and hands it back.

Whether or not it's damage control that'll actually do any good remains to be seen, but instead of commenting she asks, "Torpor. Is that a thing you do?"

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