Divided and Bound

[Alice Hart]

Alice laughs, it's an achingly empty sound. Echoing off the stone walls of the Caldarium, swirling up and around. Snaring into the Haunt's ears, and living there. "Once, years ago, I didn't believe in anything." Except for stories, but even those let her down. Or her personal one. Fairy Tale, turned horror show.....maybe she should have learned her lesson then, but it always took more for the Doll to truly learn. "Then the Bishop, my Priscus invited me to a lecture at the Moore House, when he Acknowledged me. I couldn't say no." Surly her Cousin could see why, no Haunt survived long was blind to the politics of that. "I went, I listened. I asked questions, and....I realized that maybe I could believe in something."

She returns to silence before sound once more, "You have your faith and I have mine. We might not agree, but we both believe." is what she offers Patience, it was what she felt with Robert, though, of course, there was more to it with her Burned Man.

The Doll stands to address her next question. Moving closer to the tealights, even as the Wraith rattles and hisses, clambering and crying.

"I know what it is like to have something of your Faith's....blasphemed." Remembering the fire, the Brood, the smell of gas and the terror, seeing David Silver continuing through ash and burns, the confused horror, when she couldn't understand why he was continuing.... she had been sure that in that moment, she was going to run, and never embrace the Crone....but -

"My eyes. One night I woke, and couldn't see. They were gone, and I felt their ash on my cheeks," feeling an echo of that soul biting, gnawing terror. Waking to the black. Feeling her fingers finding her lid then sliding passed them. Patience might be Family, but she didn't trust the Haunt with something as...irrevocably tied to her as this. Not beyond the basics.

"Now, questions for you, Cousin." was it selfish of her to want to speak long into the night of the history she had been a part of...? THe Doll had to remind herself that Patience, was more than just a soundboard eager to ask, and know. "Why come to Sacramento?"

[Patience]

That laughter...it's wrong-ness. It is a comfort to Patience.

The Bishop wonders what it must be like, not to believe. She decides it must be horrible.

"He taught you about belief. And yet you did not adopt the Dark Faith?" Patience is, more than anything, curious about this turn of events. For her, belief is not abstract. It is belief in something. And belief in the wrong thing is, in many ways, worse than faithlessness.

"We are Family, so I will not lie to you. I believe there is only One God. And that He demands certain services from the Damned. I cannot accept your belief."

A long, pregnant pause.

"But I also will not persecute you for it." That's the most Patience can give. It's the same thing she had granted Thomas. And for her, it is quite a lot.

The story of Alice's blindness is accepted without comment. Patience does wonder, though, at this sudden change in her cousin's requiem. A delayed effect of the curse? A divine punishment?

But then, the Doll asks her own question. Patience sees no reason to dissemble.

"I belong to a Family strongly tied to the Church. We are the Gethsemani and God has granted us a very specific calling. Our Blood is the Blood of Miracles." Her explanation is not boastful. It has the tone of a recitation or incantation.

"Because of this, we are often...protected by those of the Faith. Jealously." Read: held captive. "My sire sent me out into the world to find a place where I could do God's work. Where I could support the Church in a manner consistent with our Family's...God-given talents." In other words: where Patience could serve the Faith, without being controlled by the Church.

"Sacramento is that place. It is the Lord's Will that I spread the Word of the Centurion here."

[Alice Hart]

"No," Alice says, though perhaps the question rhetorical, "I....needed something...else.....to cleave to. To, express my faith." A pause, then a test perhaps, of Patience's words, "I my prefer dancing naked in the starlight and howling to the moon."

More space between the words, "I do not know why Gilroy did not push darker for me to join his flock....I knew that he did not enjoy the thought of me turning to the Crone...but..." a strings pulled shrug. What the Worm thought is beyond her now.

"Raised and reared among the Dark Faith..." Alice murmured, did Patience have any choice to become what she is? Was there a little girl hidden in her breast that at one point wished...? "Blood sharp and potent. Yes, I can understand why you were sent out. You cannot do anything bound within a cycle of compliance.....no matter how, reverent the practice is." Alice bends at the waist to unclasp the straps of her heels, she steps out of them, and moves to the water. she sits, and dangles her bone pale feet in the pool.

"All sorts come to Sacramento, for all reasons." She thought to add more, of what her Cousin had told her, but decided against it, "What do you know of the Second Estate's history within the Domain?"

[Patience]

"Why?" She asks simply. Bluntly. "Why did you need...that?" What Alice would call Faith. What Patience would call blasphemy.

"And what does dancing naked under the moon accomplish?" The Bishop asks, probing. "What purpose does it provide?"

The moon is a rock. The Lord is All.

"I am curious. Really. Mr. Boyle. Thomas. He told me that his goal was to become a God." Disgust is sharp in Patience's voice.

Patience approaches the Doll. Squats, her knees both cracking. Begins to unlace her boots.

"Is that your goal as well?"

She does not respond to Alice's comments on her reason for arrival. Simply pulls off her boots, her socks, rolls up her pants, and sits down beside her cousin. Feet also in the water. Shoulders almost touching.

"I know about Gilroy. And the two that came after him. Gilroy was the best of them from what I've heard." Not surprising. Their Family produces many of the most faithful. Though his inability to convert Alice is a major stain on Gilroy's legacy.

"I am more curious about the First Estate, honestly. How long have they held power here?"

[Alice Hart]

"Why don't you?" Alice asks, the true curiosity turning false. "When I lived, I was bound and shamed. I wasn't myself, I wasn't free....I need that. There is comfort in structure and happiness in ritual, but, to much to me, feels like bondage. Stifling, choking. I cannot...exist within something like that." no ice and cold iron bars for, not anymore.

Her head tilts, neck arching painfully, "I bare myself to the Goddess above, I am without trappings, or shame. I move as I am moved. How is that without purpose?"

"No," Alice's head shakes. "He wished to send was remains of his humanity and ascend to godhood....no. We worship, we are not worshiped." she says, painfully feeling the hypocrisy of her statement. She was the Pale Mother to herd, the cult she was building it into. "There is no...goal with my worship, not in that manner. I wish to worship as I want. Perhaps, bring lost souls to my circle, but I will no seek them out." A statement ringing true to her fuzzy memories. If she had to badger them to worship, to believe, how could it be true?

"He was." She says. "Though there are more. Many Haunts. Some who converted to your Faith, without the...former Bishop's presence. Moving to LA for a time." She says, remembering Robert. "Though most were fleeting. Sacramento is the River City for a reason."

"Oh?" Alice should have expected it, "As long as I've been here. The Prince before Alessandra took the seat was Invictus, though for a time he was a Dragon, and I was his Seneschal for the greater portion of my time within Sacramento. After, my eyes fell to ash." She moves her feet in the water, feeling the wet waves, her upper half, still against her cousin's shoulders. "Ale hasn't been with the Invictus long, I remember a time when she was Unbound." she confesses, showing an intimacy with the Prince, by use of a nickname. Alice wonders how Patiences will take it.

[Patience]

"What I need is not important," the Bishop replies flatly. "I have a duty. So do you. A task placed before us by God. Do you know what that task is?" Perhaps the former Bishop had not explained clearly enough.

"I have known suffering," Patience continues. "And I have never been free." It's all the truth. "But what is freedom for the Damned? Will we ever be free of the Beast? The Thirst?" No. Nor were they meant to be. So the idea seems trivial to her.

No goal? No purpose? What is the point of belief if one is not directed, if one cannot serve? Even Thomas's blasphemy seemed to provide him with motivation. "What is it that you want, then?" Patience asks, again genuinely curious.

So the Prince is a recent addition to the ranks of the Invictus? This sheds new light on the Bishop's conversation with Her Grace at the last court. Perhaps there is hope for conversion yet...

The use of 'Ale' does not escape her: "You seem familiar with Her Grace. Were you close...before?" And before what? Patience will have to ask that as well. In time.

[Alice Hart]

"If what you need is not important, then why is what I need, important to you?" Alice asks, neck arched, strings taut, on the one side.

"I am sure you wish to tell me what your God deems to be your duty." The strings relax, but her feel keep their jerking rhythm. "But we can be free to be who and what we are. Yes. We are monsters. I have never claimed we are other that that, but we can know more of ourselves then just the Beast, more then it's thirst that crawls and demands, coils with no compromise. We are more than just wretches in the night, we are a part of a greater whole." The jerking movements cease for a moment before resuming, "What I want, my goal....all that I want is the Family secure. You make your choices between, blood and belief, and I have always known the value of Family."

"Yes." She answers plainly, "We were Coterie. Still are." she confesses, a smile playing upon her lips, fleeting and mocking. Surely, her Cousin can see the value in those few, short words.

[Patience]

"The Lord commands and I obey. I need not worry about my own desires." She answers simply. Not willing to get into an argument with this heretic about their divergent needs.

"Our duty," she corrects. "God has set the Damned to sow suffering among the Kine. We are not wretches. We make them wretched. That is our purpose."

A long pause.

"That is a Divine mandate, cousin. That is what makes us more than the Beast. Without that duty, we are not part of anything greater than ourselves. Without that duty, our so-called freedom is nothing more than a distraction."

Alice's words about family hit their mark. The effect is not pleasant: "Are you insinuating that I do not value our Blood?" Her tone is venomous. Whether the Doll is close with the Prince or not, the Bishop will not be insulted.

[Alice Hart]

Alice laughs, a sound empty of all things, except it's mockery. "Then worry not of mine. At least in this."

"Is it?" She considers, "Suffering bring enlightenment." she says, wondering how her Cousin would take that. Would it be an agreement, seeing similarities, or would it be turned out of hand, for the voice that said it? "We are, we can be, greater than our small shallow existence." silent for a moment, "What, then, do you do with your duty given freedom? Do you consider anything you do, without the arm of your God guiding you, to be an avoidance of your duty?" she asks, neck arched. Strings lax and taut.

"Do you always take everything said personally? I said 'you' as a generalization. You must chose, I must chose, I made my choice, not that You, Patience must chose, that you, Patience, do not know. that you, Patience, do not care." says she, legs still moving, water lapping at her ankles.

[Patience]

Patience ignores the laugh. She stares at her cousin's profile intensely, her own face twisted by the confusing welter of feelings inside her: fascination, disgust, curiosity, anger. All of it intensified by her Curse. It would be disturbing to witness, if Alice could see.

"Suffering is punishment. The Lord alone brings succor. If he so chooses." And in Patience's experience, He rarely does. "But you are not entirely wrong. Suffering is a message from God. Therefore it is a Gift that can bring wisdom. If we are ready to receive." The problem is, Alice is not.

"I don't think I understand," she replies to the Doll's question concerning freedom. Is she asking after Patience's hobbies? "I exist to serve," she adds. Patience is a weapon. She is an implement. She strives always to act in service to the Lord. What more could there be?

"I take things seriously," comes the Bishop's retort. "Words matter, cousin. Especially when it comes to Family. Because I take our Blood seriously. I believe our Family knows, more than any other, the meaning of Damnation. I am proud of that, God forgive my sin."

A pause.

"That is why, despite our...differences, I will defend you, and any other Nosferatu, against all outsiders. Please understand that." It is meant to be reassuring, though Alice can take it how she will. "I am glad that we share an understanding of the importance of Family, Alice. From what you say, it seems we once held pride of place in the domain. I would like for us to assume that position again." Say what you will about Patience; her ambition cannot be denied.