The Pits

[Alice Hart]

"I learned enough to know that the safest thing, was to not be in one place for long." Alice answers, before she continues on. "When he was killed, I didn't know enough to know that he dared someone to kill him - I was claimed by someone else. A Mekhet - only I didn't realize that was what my night time friend was. He'd already gotten permission to sire me, he'd been waiting until I was old enough....only Jack - my sire - Embraced me first." Alice says and decides not to mention that Jack had only come across her because her dad made enemies, enemies who could hire a vampire to kill a college bound daughter. "If things had been different, if the gods willed differently...I wouldn't be here, now. Or I might. My journey might have still lead me here, but I might be a Shadow instead of a Haunt."

"I pray nothing does." Alice says, echoing Cynthia's sentiment.

While the finger tapping is the only sound between them, Alice sits and waits. Remembering what she'd been like when she was asking these sorts of questions.

"That's actually a harder question then you think it is." Alice starts, "Every Acolyte is different, and ever Circle is also different." Alice says, waiting for something. Maybe it's an unseen signal, or maybe it's her own thoughts, "When I was asking questions of the Acolytes of Sacramento...I didn't know what they believed, only that they did. They held certain gods on high and worshiped them. Or at least Prayed to them." Alice's hollow voice carried thoughts without waiting for her to release it. Realizing that she's fall quiet, before she draws in breath to speak again. "Let me start again. We are vampires. Many would call us damned. But we're not. We're not human, but the fact that we exist means that we're meant too." Alice says softly, "There's other monsters out there right? The lupines, being the one we think of first, or at least I do, and there's other monsters still. Just because we haven't seen them doesn't make them any less real....or unnatural. We all have a place in the world, and we - the Circle - take from myths and legends and use it to...." Alice's lips move soundlessly for a moment, she's trying to grasp onto thoughts she can't share with an untested kindred. "Kine know history, but their history has nothing about vampires in it. Which is on purpose, but we know that some myths and legends are real, because we are real, so we look to them, to ground us, to explain the world we live in...

"Forgive me for rambling."

[Cynthia Weiss]

"Feels like existence is made of what ifs beyond our control at times." Cynthia observed. Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if her sire hadn't dragged her out into the night and into undeath. Would she have gained fame for her talents? Stayed obscure? Would another Kindred from the other clans embraced her?

She shook her head. That time had long past. Such speculation was useless.

The tapping of her fingers stopped as she listened to Alice's explanation. "Hey, I asked. You don't need to apologise." The artist said to the High Priestess. The explanation was more disjointed and vaguer than she was hoping. "Natural beings instead of creatures of damnation? I can see the appeal in that." It seemed far more palatable than the other things she had heard. "Considering how many secrets seem to be crammed in the world, I'm not surprised fact and myth can bleed into each other." At least, that was what she got out of what was said anyway. Her hesitation to share was picked up by the Artist. Well getting a straight answer is gonna be harder than expected.

"Suppose I should ask what you worship then." There was a slight pause. "As long as I'm not intruding on with that I mean." The goth added quickly in a bit to try and keep things polite, even as the smell of cyanide pierced the odour of filth around them.

[Alice Hart]

"It dose feel like that sometimes...but when you believe as I do, you have faith that everything will work out, that there's a reason - " she cuts off her words, because if that's what she truly believes then, then - Robert. No. Not here. "A reason for everything, and it might seem that it's all out of our control - yes. But to believe that there's a plan....it lightens the load, and settles something, or at least it does for me." Alice finishes, willing herself to believe that.

"But I did, and I might again. I've never spoken to someone about this who wasn't a member of the Circle already." the Doll explains, and continues on, "Many do. It's one of the reasons why there are still Acolytes. Why kindred still come to the Circle even knowing, or suspecting that some of the rumors are true." says, she. Wondering if Cynthia would ask about what even had Alice's brows climb her face before she'd devoted her unlife to the Crone. "That's the truth. What's hidden in myth could very well be fact. Like us. Like even greater mysteries....and the very gods themselves."

Alice lets the questions settle around her, no one, had asked her that, she's tentatively told Katya who had drawn her eye, and when she found the Sister's Three, she'd lead with their names on her tongue. "I am unusual, there are those who do not limit themselves to a single pantheon, but I've felt most comfortable with those found in Greek mythology. Specifically, Astraeus, the Titan God of the Dusk, and his family. His mate Eos the Goddess of the Dawn, their sons, the four Anemoi - the four winds - and the five Astra Planeta - the wandering stars, the planets. And their daughter, Astraea, the Goddess of innocence and justice."

Alice lets that wash of words settle before she asks her own question in kind.

"Now you don't have to answer if you don't want to. But I'd like you to think about. Are you asking me these questions because you're curious, or are you more then simply curious?"

[Cynthia Weiss]

Cynthia paused for a moment then jerked her head down in a motion resembling a nod, not really realising Alice could not see it. To her faith was still a foreign concept to her. "I'll agree with you that certainty is a nice thing to have." And to nomads a rare commodity she mentally added. ​"Are any of those rumours true? I mean I doubt most of them are." And with talk of myth and fact, it could mean there was a lot more that was valid.

Cynthia thought on if when Alice asked. The tapping of her fingers on the box had started up again, but only for a few seconds. "Curiosity. You are the first acolyte I've met that actually answers my questions." She finally answered after a moment. "Why? This how the Circle gets most of its acolytes?" Another question, though one that at least sounded a little lighter.

[Alice Hart]

Alice nods, a smooth inhuman thing. The motion stops, as she considers how to answer. "Some. Depends on what you've heard. But there is blood, and pain. There are trials, tribulations...but to face them, to over come them...that, they make us so much stronger then we once were....it's that strength and that faith that allowed me to loose my eyes, to have them crumble to ash and cascade down my cheeks, and to not great the sun."

The tapping, Alice was linking to a nervous tick, a habit from life maybe, or something done to help her fellow haunt think.

Alice smiles, it's a thing that will always be hollow and fake, it's a thing that divides her from others even at her sincerest. "I was curious once. I found an Acolyte to answer my questions." Alice answers and wonders if this'll become a Sacramento tradition.

[Cynthia Weiss]

Vagueness again. Specifics avoided. The artist frowned and the finger tapping returned for a moment. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it thinking better than trying to dredge up more details for now. Her finger stopped again and she shrugged. "Can't be worse than a decade on the road. Starvation, madness, frenzy, the threat of final death everywhere from the sun to careless mortals. You get to meet new people at the least." Cynthia said with a small laugh. The humour of her voice was undercut by a hint of sadness just below the surface, the dread spectre of nostalgia once again threatening to cloud her mind.

The haunt tilted her head to the side slightly. "Its gonna take a bit more than a Q and A session to make me sign up for something." A small smirk started to appear on her face. "If that was the case I would be firebombing some elders haven with the Carthians."

Her face snapped back to a blank expression as she looked the blind doll up and down. "Feel free to ask me anything if you want. Don't want this to turn into an interrogation on my part."

[Alice Hart]

"You'd be surprised." Alice says, and remembers a Shadow diving in to flames, only to live and carry on with the Rite. Cynthia didn't know of ritual purification, fasting, offerings, penance, and everything else. She wouldn't know. Not unless she decided to nurture a spark of faith and fall into the arms of those that would nurture instead of damn.

"That, I understand." Alice says with another hollow laugh. Moving on from what happened within the Circle, "Until I came here, I was Unbound, proud to be. It was the only thing I knew. Years I spent like that. Then, I started wondering...I asked my questions, and realized that once I was apart of a Covenant I wouldn't be alone....even when I was. Like now." She was the only Acolyte here, but there were others in the world. Some Circles, that would accept her would she appear before them...if there was ever need. If her position as Priscus or Seneschal were to leave her, if her being herself, or her faith or -- Well. Alice knew she'd survive.

"I'm happy to answer your questions, so it's not really an interrogation." Alice returns, but nods, "Have you managed to find the time, or the space to paint?" knowing when there was something one loved that wasn't in your time, it turned and tumbled around in your head and soured more then you'd think, until it returned to your life.

[Cynthia Weiss]

"Maybe." She conceded. "But I have seen and done quite a bit. So who knows." The Nosferatu wondered what if anything Alice could possibly show her that would shock her. She remained silent when belonging and loneliness were brought up. Her face twisted into a scowl, old memories now digging through the insides of her skull. This place was making those old wounds far too tender. A twisted part of Cynthia was glad Alice could not see her face. Such weakness was best not advertised to the rest of the damned.

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Clearing a path to the pit has eaten most of my time here. Though now that you've given me permission I should be able to carve a space down here for me to work." Cynthia said, glad that the conversation had taken a turn to somewhere else. ​"Been thinking of experimenting with a different style again but I don't know what yet."

[Alice Hart]

"You have." Alice nods, she's lasted a few years on the road, but Cynthia had lasted a decade. Maybe, she had seen more then what the Summer with the Sister's Three had put her through, had seen more then what they had regaled her with of tales of other cults.

"That's a shame, and I'm sorry that you bettering the Necropolis has taken time away from your craft." Alice says with all her sincerity, which of course is hollow and ringing false. "But that you can carve a space Below for your art....well. I'd love to see that come true. Would you divide the space into a place to work and a place to display your art?" Alice asks, "I...don't know much about art, or styles of painting...but you could look through Google and see if something grabs your attention there, and see if you can explore that."

[Cynthia Weiss]

Her eyes fell once more on the empty black pits on her face. A harrowing imperfection on her artificial beauty. Cynthia was unsure if that was sarcasm or not. It was moments like this that made getting a read on the Doll difficult to say the least. "Not sure yet. If I can find space in the Necropolis I'll be sure to display some of my works." The artist had not really thought that far ahead. A frown appeared when google was mentioned. "I seriously need to put more effort into understanding technology. Computers seem to be everywhere in this day and age." She lamented.

"The Circle in need of any artistic commissions by the way?" She asked, recalling her last conversation with Longstreet. "Others have been asking so I really should extend the offer." She had doubts Alice would be able to appreciate her works. But you never know.