Neighborhood Watch

[RebornSeas]

Kassidy suppressed a laugh at the comparison of Catherine with Bruce Lee. "I may not be capable of instructing her in Martial arts, but I can at least teach her how to use Vigor. That might help. Maybe. Once she learns how to kick?" He couldn't help it and a chuckle escaped. "She'll learn eventually, and I don't mind spending the time to watch her back."

That was more than true enough. He had something of a vested interest in it regardless of her deal for residency or not. She was, after all, a very old friend of his.

Not as old as Dillon, though, neatly brought up by the man himself. "That's right. You're... what, at least 150? The world... even just America has changed alot. You must have seen the end of the Civil war... Photography was still new even back then, wasn't it?"

[Dillon Connery]

"Good guess," Dillon says with a solid nod. "A hundred and seventy..." an eye squints closed briefly, "...one. As of sometime this Autumn. 'Seventeen decades' is easier for me to keep straight. And it will be eighteen in Twenty-Twenty-Two. That's how I keep up with what happened when."

And thus, anyone who does the math and realizes he was eighteen until late the year the Civil War started might infer, "I saw more than the end of it. The 'War of Rebellion' some of us who wore blue called it then. But many of my neighbors considered me the traitor... since I volunteered for the Union from a southern state. North Carolina was one of the last to formally join the Confederacy. South Carolina, the first."

It had been a volatile area, to be sure. "So, infantry with the First North Carolina Union Volunteers for a few years, then a couple of us boys that were good with the horses were selected for mounted Cavalry. Dragoons, some called it. We all thought it a clever combination of the word dragon and just plain goon."

He shrugs. "Never been able to find record of the transfer orders. They've not survived the sands of time. There is a John D Conner listed under the NC Vols' rosters in several places on the internet, though. Which I'm pretty sure is supposed to be me."

The thing is, John Dillon Connery dropped his Christian name at the age of sixteen, when he murdered the highwaymen that killed his parents...

"So yeah." A small chuckle of his own escapes. "Everything has changed quite a bit."

[RebornSeas]

Kassidy sat silent and stunned. That was a lot to process. "A lot of things do, yeah." He sighed and raised a hand to his hair as if to take it out, but stopped himself and shrugged. "And then there's the things that don't..." He ended on a shrug, and tried not to scowl at the thought.

"John really doesn't suit you."

[Dillon Connery]

Dillon can't help but wonder if certain parts of Kassidy's measured response had to do with racial and/ or sexual equality. For his part, the Gangrel is still certain that things have changed. Some by leaps and bounds, and others by mere steps, true. But the optimistic way to look at things is; they're getting somewhere. Less than a decade or two previous, homosexual lifestyles were accepted as taboo and negative in mainstream culture.

"There's still a lot of hatred and bigotry in the world," he confirms, almost to himself. Without bothering to explain his train of thought and association. At least people in this country are no longer permitted to own and trade each other like cattle.

It might sound like hypocrisy, coming from a vampire. By and large, cattle are arguably all mortals are to them anymore. But Dillon believes in more than that.

"No," he laughs easily about his long-lost forename, despite himself. "I never thought it did, either."

[RebornSeas]

Kassidy nodded. "That's true. Though I was thinking more of human and Kine nature: There will always be those who take advantage of slow-to change systems and society to uh... well, It's like, if you get blamed for baiting your attacker into attacking you... you're not going to report being attacked as often. If you know that fighting back will get you in more trouble with authorities than the person verbally abusing you, you aren't going to fight back. So, there's always going to be people who take advantage of the fact that they themselves could freely attack certain groups of people and know justice will come to them." The Shorter man gave an embarrassed shrug at his less-than-articulate explanation.

There was no doubt in his mind at least that Kindred exploited their herds in similar fashions.

[Dillon Connery]

Lifting one hand away from the wheel long enough to wag an agreeing index finger, Dillon is willing to mentally concede the point. "That's also very true.

"Which makes my mind go back to politics. By which I mean the social tug-of-war and Chess game that any culture or circle plays rather than those of a specific government."

Another little shrug. "It's nature, for the aggressive and the ambitious to take advantage of the passive, whether they offer the opportunity willingly or not." Then, abruptly, he chuckles again. "And maybe I should stop there, before I begin to sound any more like a cynical old vampire."

[RebornSeas]

"No, please, continue. It's nice to have company in that once and a while." Kassidy couldn't help but think of the conversation with Martha that had opened up this patrol. She was so innocently optimistic and utterly oblivious to Kassidy's own take on things that Dillon's realistic cynicism was downright refreshing.

"But there's ways to be passive and avoid the worst of being taken advantage of. Find someone more ambitious willing to watch your back, or just do your damnedest to avoid notice. Sometimes I feel like I know them all by heart."

[RebornSeas]

After a moment, Kassidy lifted his finger in memory "There's a quote... 'Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.' Which... Well, that's normally how I handle my ambitions. Keep them small, or devote them to helping someone else achieve something bigger, because if I have and pursue my own ambitions of note... Obstacles Rise - hmm, no, more like smothers - everything I was working towards. It might effectively amount to the same thing, but I'm happier not attracting people to lighting fires in front of where I'm staying."

[Dillon Connery]

Dillon nods, allowing for Kassidy's views to mull about in his mind. And wondering if it is all merely semantics. "In a way, that can be the same thing. If you're actively taking advantage of a situation to perpetuate your own position, you are still the bigger fish on the food chain. Whether it's done in a way to avoid undue attention or not.

"Stronger will governs the weaker. Quite often, that isn't done in the limelight." Especially with Kindred.

It isn't offered as argument, but as a friendly description of his thoughts for Kassidy to examine at leisure. Dillon is glad to have someone to bat these subjects around with as a means to give them fresh consideration.

"If you preserve your Requiem by surrounding yourself with one or more those more willing to shine, those willing to protect you, while you concern yourself with making as few waves as possible, and endearing yourself to the powers that be... are you not still pressing the advantage? The ambition is there, as is the goal for survival and furthering your own worth... it's just not as obvious as those that are overtly aggressive."

He adds as a bit of a disclaimer and afterthought, "By which I'm neither accusing you of that, or implying that it is in the least bit 'wrong'.

"What I'd like to hear your opinion about - and I couldn't claim to have a right answer on this, I just enjoy hearing views on it - is how often you think true symbiosis occurs. Are any of us ever gaining as much as we are giving from anyone else?"

[RebornSeas]

Kassidy gave a thoughtful nod, mulling that over. "It says something, doesn't it, that simply not dying young is considering ambitious." That had always been a stumbling block for Kassidy's mental process, yet at the same time he was hardly young anymore. 'Living' until he could see a far more meaningful change in whom the easiest and most vulnerable targets were... well, that is ambitious.

Still, Dillon's final question was an interesting one. "The problem with figuring that out is... There's too many perspectives on the value of what's given and what's received. So with humanity... not so much. Though biological symbiosis is a bit different. there's cases where neither creature could survive without the other. Err... I think?"