multiversallogs | Furniture shopping! [open]

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Furniture shopping! [open]

Who: Brie Cormac and Mina Barrett and OPEN
What: Furniture shopping
Where: All across town
When: Just after sunset
Notes: Feel free to run into them at any furniture/deco store.
Warnings: None yet

It pained Brie not to live with Mina - she had done so for nearly a year before arriving here. But the thought of complete darkness when she was allowed to feel sunlight was too unbearable. But despite moving in with Jones, she was determined to see Mina regularly and often, especially with the anti-vampire movement going on.

Thus, now the proud renter of an empty room, Brie needed to get some new furniture and there was no one better than Mina to take her shopping.

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Everything Mina said was right - about who Jacqueline cared about and why she would fight hard to get back to them. But didn't she care about those people too?

"But don't you want to see Mom? She's your sister. And Dad, you two have so much fun together. They're family, your family."

Mina shook her head slightly. "Jacqueline, don't make me say it. I can't bear to say it and I can promise you that right now, you are ill-equipped to hear it."

She felt some heat rise behind her eyes and had to close them for a moment. Mina couldn't afford to cry. She barely had enough blood in her system to sustain her with any semblance of humanity.

When Mina closed her eyes, Jacqueline scooted closer to her seat.

"Don't make you say what? That they aren't your family? Because you know they are. How many times have I heard you tell stories about 'Jack and Anne'? The way my parents look at you after you've returned from being away, if that isn't family -- I don't know what is."

"I'm not talking about Jack and Anne," Mina said quietly. "I have loved your parents through lifetimes. But in the end, the things I did, the things I've been...it was never for them."

She opened her eyes slowly. If Jacqueline was so determined to tread down this path, then Mina could not escape it. She was so very much her mother's daughter. Stubborn. Strong. Annoyingly persistent. "I did it for Tom," she said quietly. "I did it for some illusion of love that no longer exists. So I ask you, what happens now?"

It wasn't hard to imagine how Mina was feeling. When Jacqueline had found out the Luke by her side was a fetch, she felt betrayed. Like the feeling she gave him had been cheated from her, stolen in a way that could never be taken back. Luckily for her, she was able to find Luke. He was in worse than poor shape, but eventually, they were happy again.

When she found Tom, she had been so happy for Mina. Finally, her aunt would be able to find the man she had been looking for. But when they found out -- about his, identity, Jacqueline could see the change in Mina's expression. It was unbelievable.

And she didn't know what to say. What could she say? So Jacqueline looked down at the table.

Mina watched Jacqueline for a moment. Her gaze was not unkind, but there was a hot of unabashed hurt there too. It wasn't Jacqueline's fault, of course. None of it was; not the truth about Tom, nor her failure to understand, nor even Mina's sense of loneliness. But she could imagine how Jacqueline was feeling right now. Flustered. Guilty. Empathetic, perhaps.

Switching over to Norse, Mina spoke in a gentle, calm voice. "You know, I'm not a Kindred philosopher by any stretch of the imagination, but there's something I've noticed over the last few centuries. It's that vampires find different ways to cope with immortality. Some do it by turning off their humanity. Others find someone or something to live for."

She let the unasked question hang in the air: What did she have to live for now?

Jacqueline tried to understand. Part of her could. If it where anyone else who was gone from her life, her mother, father, or even Mina, she wouldn't be crying herself to sleep at night. But instead it was Luke.

Maybe it was because she still had hope that she'd see Luke again someday. But the other part of her, who saw Mina's postion but wasn't in it, couldn't understand. When she was young, she lived to become a vampire so she could join the Valkyries. It was because she believed in something larger. She loved Luke for many reasons, but most importantly, it was because he shared the same values. They fought, side by side, for the same things. He was a pillar in her life, but she couldn't imagine losing her will to live because of him.

But maybe it was because she just wasn't there yet.

"Why did you become a Valkyrie?"

Mina leveled her eyes on Jacqueline. "I could give you a list of reasons longer than Doyle's cock," she said, momentarily forgetting herself. "Adventure, the chance to do something meaningful, the chance to do something good, immortality, a lifetime of your mother and your father." Jack would, of course, be utterly scandalized by such language in front of his daughter. A bit abashed, she cleared her throat. "Pardon my language."

She looked down at her chipped nails a moment before continuing, "But if I'm honest with myself, and honest with you, so much of it was for Tom. Finding Tom, avenging Tom, making sure what happened to me never happened to another innocent soul." She smiled slyly, "Not that I was ever innocent."

Jacqueline managed a smile.

"I can understand that. But now that he's ... gone, the rest of it, does it not matter? What do you expect to wake up to a few centuries from now? Tom still won't be here. What will you do then? Why not find something new to care about, now, this century?"

Smiling absently, Mina lowered her feet from the table. She leaned forward, resting her temple on he fingertips, giving Jacquelin a look.

"Did you have something in mind?" she asked.

She didn't, but Jacqueline was going to start making things up if she had to.

"At least we're not in Arcadia anymore. We could seek to do good here, in Baedal, until we find a way back home. Then we can find my parents, find Luke, and we can all set off together. Go somewhere new, fight another good fight."

"Yes, well, having never been in Arcadia, you will have to tell me what that was like sometime." Mina frowned slightly, wondering if there was even a world for them to return to. She didn't like the thought of Anne and Jack and Luke being gone, but she wasn't going to voice it. Jacqueline pretended to be tough, but it would crush her. Of that, Mina was absolutely certain.

There were a lot of hopelessly optimistic ifs in Jacqueline's suggestion, but it wasn't worth arguing. "Well," she said slowly, "I haven't made my mind up yet. And I promise not to do anything drastic without telling you first, all right?"

She let out a small, mirthless laugh. "Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow night, I'll turn round a corner and meet the next great love of my life. We never know what the future is going to bring, do we?"

Jacqueline smiled. "All right. You know where I stand."

Mina's comment set off a train of thought in Jacqueline's mind, which started with Jacqueline setting Mina up on a blind date, and ended in happy marriage. But she decided not to voice that part.

((OOC: This plan will end sooooooo well.))

"Then we're settled," Mina said, putting her feet back up on the table again. Simple as that. Out of sight, out of mind.

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Furniture shopping! [open]

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