Lance pulls in at a motel called the Ridge nestled inside the Barrens. The place looks almost deserted apart from the trickle of night-trade lingering on the lot and the odd moving shadows in a parked car.

Amelita had held on tight and screwed her eyes shut. Adjusting her amped senses to the sights and sounds atop a moving bike had been an ordeal. She staggers off the back and slowly takes off the helmet, trying not to mess up her hair any more. She looks sceptically up at the dingy sprawl of the motel and back at Lance.

"I guess it'll do."

Spending 1 willpower to harden reflection for the scene due to a terminal case of security cameras

Lance shrugs. "Sorry it's not the Ritz, but I'm strapped for cash. Hold on a second while I pay this guy." He goes in and comes back out a short time later with one of those little disposable card things all the hotels use now. When the duo get to the room, he pulls out one of the chairs at the table for Amelita to sit in, like a gentleman. "I wouldn't use the bed if I were you."

Amelita took a seat, pleasantly surprised by Lance's manners, smiling her thanks. Her ratty hoody hung by the elbows of her blouse. She took one look at the bed with her heightened senses and nodded. "Yeah, I don't know if you have the Sight, but I do... and yeah..."

She started to tie her hair back, silently inviting Lance to sit next to her with a pleasant look.

"So why don't we finish introduce our introductions. I'm Amelita Cardoso. Please call me Am or Ammy... not 'Lita though... I get 'Miss Cardoso' way too much... I'm Mekhet. The clan whip actually... work at the Sacramento Bee as Ariana Donovan's personal assistant. And yes, I'm with the Ordo."

"No, no Sight, just experience," Lance replies as he takes a seat next to Amelita. "Okay then Am. Daeva and new in town for me," He starts, gesturing to himself. "Was down in San Fran doing freelance work with the Carths, but after twenty years I wanted to explore my options a bit somewhere where my past wasn't really an issue. The Dragons weren't really forthcoming down there, so I'm not sure what it is they did."

Amelita nodded, smiling easily at Lance. "I figured you for Daeva. I just won a bet with myself." She pulls out her phone and hangs up on an incoming call before answering Lance's question.

"Well, I'm just a Slave in the Ordo, so I don't know how much I can tell you. But they're all about working around the curses and rising above it. Golconda or something else. They think they can figure out how to walk around in the day and eat and stuff like that. My old mentor said it'd be like cutting out all the cruddy parts of our deal and keeping the cool stuff."

"Has anyone actually done anything like that?" The disbelief is evident in his tone, it's not hard to understand why. "I mean, I've heard rumors about being able to play with fire, but nothing like sunlight or food."

Amelita's expression became wan. "A lot to swallow, right? The Big D raging against the big curse, sunwalking... I don't know if that's been done. I believe there's Kindred who can eat food without hurling, who can walk through fire and staying up all day... indoors. It gives me hope that it can all be 'transcended' - that's what they call it."

Amelita smiled awkwardly as her fingers danced over the cloth petals of synthetic flowers in a crummy vase.

"What do you think?"

Lance hrms as he listens, "It's a tempting dream, but what's this about you being a Slave?" That didn't sound good, especially to someone raised by the Carthians.

Amelita grinned, as though amused. "I'm ok. It's just what they call brand new people, I guess. It's not like anybody pushes me around or treats me like dirt. I don't think anyone's ever even called me 'Slave' to my face. I've only been with the Ordo a month, so I guess it's tradition is all."

Amelita sat back in her chair, looking thoughtfully at Lance.

"You mind if I ask how old you are, Lance?"

"It's what? Twenty-eleven now?" He takes his toothpick container out and places it on the table while he takes a moment to do the math. "I'm Fifty-eight, but I don't think I look a day over thirty, thirty-five on the outside." He barks out a laugh as he puts one of the toothpicks into his mouth to chew as he leans back in his chair. "Wow, I remember when sixty seemed so far away. Why'd you want to know?"

Am shrugged, hand still dancing over the fake flowers. "No reason. The Beast in you just felt about the same as the Beast in me. Wondered what the age difference might be. I don't get to talk to people my age that much."

"Ah." A gentlemen doesn't ask a Lady her age, but Lance is only a sporadic gentleman. "When were you Embraced?"

"That's kind of forward of you. Let's see..." Amelita teased, "...Two-Thousand and Eleven, year of our Lord..." her tone remained playful "...that'd make it nearly three years now."

She takes one of the fake flowers out of the vase, twirling the plastic stem.

"You seem sort of my age, anyway."

Lance smirks at the comment. "I'm kind of a forward guy, I'm not patient enough to wait for last call when I'm hunting." He leans forward, resting his arms on the table. "You want to talk about it? I'm a good listener."

"Ok." Amelita sets the flower down and leans forward on her elbows. "So it sucks, obviously, because I was doing ok until completely out of the blue daylight's out of bounds and I just disappear on my Mom and my sisters and everyone in my old life." She starts her story off with levity in her voice, but it soon disappears, revealing nothing but spent, forlorn anger.

"And the only family I have after that's just this crazy ghost of a thing that runs my life. I mean who'd just take someone out of their life like that? And why me? I don't get it."

She takes another fake flower from the vase and looks up apologetically at Lance as she realizes she's been ranting.

Lance grimaces, the tvtropes had a name for this that was far too appropriate, I hate you vampire dad. Well-adjusted Embraces seemed so rare for some reason. But maybe he could help her. "If this didn't happen to me I would have bled out in a parking garage, so I'd say I look at it differently than a lot of people do. But I need to ask, did you ever ask your Sire why he Embraced you?"

"My Sire was... more like 'Sires' plural. Fractured, shifting ghost. I asked them that a lot. They'd never give the same answer twice in a row. Most often they'd just say that 'I looked like someone'."

"Well that's creepy." Tactfully, he didn't say that at least she wasn't a Nosferatu, she probably wouldn't take it that well. "So your life is over, that doesn't mean you can't make a new one, does it? You have a Haven, are you eating enough? Well, regularly at least? Have you thought of joining a Coterie?"

Amelita smiled sadly. "That was back in Los. I was living with someone here, but that's over now. But I have a place. And a job and an education. I've landed on my feet, but it's still the same old baggage... I want to hang out with people like me. Just have fun, like before, you know?"

Lance nods in agreement. "Yeah, I do. Look," He digs around in his pockets again before finding a pen and getting something to write on from a bedside table. "If you want, here's my number. Call me if you want to go out or just want to talk or soemthing. I may be twice your age, but I still like to have fun. It's nice to have options, you know?"

Amelita took the number, noticeably cheered up.

"I'd like that. Maybe you could pick me up from work tomorrow and we could do something then."

She picked up her phone and set about adding Lance to her contacts list. She looked at the bed and thanked God she didn't have blacklight vision.

"We could go somewhere nicer than this. My treat... So you were in SF before Sac?"

Lance leans back in his chair, remaining upright only through natural Daeva grace. "That sounds nice. And yes, I was born and raised there. Do you mind if I ask how big the Order is here? Or if you could tell me about the people in it?"

"Lemme think," Amelita trailed, "There's like six including me... the Herald's in it, the Reeve..." she began. "They're family..." she added. "Anasztaz Veres just stepped up to lead. It's kind of big for the city. It's going through kind of a revival right now. The last guy, Hartman; he basically ran the Ordo into the ground here. But that's over now."

"Really? Why'd he do that?" Lance asks, interest peaking.

"He just didn't do anything, way I hear it," Amelita replied. "Lazy or dumb or something. At the last Ordo thing it seemed like there really hadn't been many meetings while he was around."

Lance nods in understanding. "You said there were five others, who'd you leave out?"

"This Haunt chick, Dr Josephine. She's another pledge. Kind of a cold fish. I think she's in Annie - Mr Veres - I think she's in his pocket."

Lance looks ceilingwards and counts the stains as he thinks things through. [color=yellowgreen]"I'd like to give the Covenant a shot, if it will have me. What would I need to do to join?"