milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Valjean is troubled. About a great many things - but this is nothing new, and none of it shows on his face, or the way he carries himself. Indeed, when he comes downstairs for supper and sees children all over the place, he breaks into a smile. Well! This is a delight.

He seats himself in a booth to the side. Bar has provided a book, and a modest meal of bread and cheese. He ignores them in favour of watching the young ones. It brings a mixture of sadness for things lost, and happiness to see such youthful exuberance. Such things keep an old man young.

[OOC: Open 'til next Friday.]

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She chuckles quietly.

"Take a nice book or two," she says. "There's nothing wrong with being anything, really, but you don't have to try them all out on your own body. You want to retain something of yourself, after all. A lot of a person's identity is tied up with their physical being. Even when I was turned male, I didn't suddenly become human."

He only has time to consider that no, she is wrong, that identity...

'...I beg your pardon, madame?'

The thought melts away with her comment.

"I guess that in your world, all people are human?" she says, a tiny smile on her face at his reaction.

'...I hope so?'

Yes, indeed.

She chuckles.

"Well, if not, you will find a way of dealing with them," she says. "But no, on my world, the Disc, there are many species of people. Humans, dwarfs, trolls, Nac Mac Feegles, goblins, orcs, elves, golems, zombies, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, gods, and the occasional anthropomorphic personification. And then some I probably forgot to mention. Some people count Igors as a species of their own, for example. And Nobby Nobbs from the Ankh Morpork City Watch."

He does not know what most of these things are. He casts around for something he can respond with, and comes up with,

'I did meet an elf here. A Dark Elf, he called himself. He was very kind.'

"Our elves are very fierce, dangerous, and quite different from human in temper and attitude," Lady Margolotta says. "And anything but kind. But then, the rules for all the different species vary from world to world. I'm always astonished how many different kinds of vampires there are."

'And that is what you are?'

His face settles into neutrality.

'I have heard this word, since I have come here.'

"Yes, that is what I am," she says. "But don't worry; I'm a reformed vampire. I won't bite."

He does not look wary. His face does not change.

'I do not know much about vampires, madame. Save that they drink the blood of humans.'

And he does not approve of this. Does not approve of himself for judging it either, but that is a battle of conscience he will think about later.

"Which I do not," she says. "That's what vampiric reform is about. If we stop considering the humans prey, then they stop fearing us, and we can use all the energy and inventiveness we used for pursuing and avoiding each other for something creative, which will finally bring my home country of Überwald into a position to compete peacefully with the rest of the world, instead of stewing in our own juices, clinging to our own problems as if they were valuable traditions."

Edited 2013-10-17 00:02 (UTC)

'I see.'

He thinks, perhaps, he does not really see.

'You could tell me, if you would not mind, what compels vampires to feed so in the first place.'

"I can," she says. "I must warn you, though, that it's different for each world in which we exist, but I'll try to take that into account. In my world, being a vampire is hereditary, and we're able to survive without drinking blood, which is more like an obsession, or an addiction. Some of us who haven't been reformed that long are so addicted the mere word 'blood' might set them off, so to be careful, they don't use it. That leads to silly behaviour of the kind where they say 'b-vurd' instead of it."

She says it in a silly, exaggerated accent.

"On the other hand, silly is good. It means that we're not so scary any more. We cultivated the scariness for many many centuries; it was part of what kept people fascinated, and in thrall. Obsession now serves to distract us from the addiction, be it with coffee or iconography or world politics. If we become these slightly manic creatures obsessed with rather mundane things, we're even less fearsome, and it gets easier to work with us as if we were people, not monsters. And we're all people, even those who aren't technically speaking people. That is one principle I'm working hard to promote in our world."

He absorbs this in silence - somewhat confused silence, but silence nonetheless.

'It does not sound like the sort of vampire I have heard about. Nonetheless, taking the blood of other people is not...admirable.'

Politely said, of course.

"No," she says gently. "That is part of why we're stopping. Some kinds of vampires can't, but most of them can make substitution work, or find volunteers. Nobody needs to prey on people if they don't want to, no matter what some here may tell you."

'Ah. Well then, it is good that you promote restraint.'

He is a little torn. If a vampire requires blood, then it does not seem fair to let them die because of the sanctity of human blood. But then, killing humans to eat does not seem fair either.

'Do their victims die, always?'

"Oh no," she says, almost horrified. "Actually, in most worlds, most victims do not. No good parasite kills its host right away. I think there are worlds out there where much of the blood-drinking is done from willing humans because the vampires offer some sort of supernatural experience with the process, like the anaesthetic venom of a mosquito?"

'...willing humans?'

Well.

No, he does not know what to make of that.

"They don't die; they just feed them," Lady Margolotta says. "But still, I wouldn't do it. And no really reformed vampire from my own world, either. I have spoken to a very fascinating young woman from another world who sees a way to convert her world's vampires to living on animal blood, so we're really not the only ones. But there are terribly unreformed vampires here, too, so I do recommend you be careful."

'Yes, but - why do they do this?'

He quite clearly gives no thought to his own safety, for all the notice he pays to the warning.

"The humans or the vampires?" she asks.

'The humans.'

He can understand vampires wanting to eat, and survive. But not the other.

"The bite of those vampires offers some sort of experience," she says, "sensual pleasure, or visions as if under the influence of a drug. Some humans in those worlds seem to find it quite addictive. It is some sort of trade-off, I guess. On the other hand, the kind of vampire that can just compel a human by reaching into their mind and making them comply is utterly beyond the pale, by my standards, and deserves to be reformed with a wooden stake."

'Am I to assume a wooden stake is an effective tool against them?'

He will remember that. It will be pointless though, because he would never one.

And he does not know what to say regarding sensual pleasure, or drugged influence, so stays silent.

"Wooden stakes, silver, garlic, sunlight, religious symbols," she says. "But not for all kinds of vampires, and what kills one kind, will just be very unpleasant for another. And it's different what they can revive from or not. Vampires from my world can crumble to dust from strong direct sunlight, but will revive with just one or two drops of blood."

Pause.

"But as the rules here clearly state that vampires can't feed from the unwilling in here, and they have a vampire slayer on Security, it's safe. The worst a very unreformed vampire can do is entice some patron away to his own world."

From her expression and her tone of voice, she disapproves deeply of the latter.