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teja

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Door swings open, a pale girl walks in. New clothes, same blank expression, a book in her hands, the first thing the Fledgling does is check the sign she left, and then move to a seat.

Definitely not by the fireplace or the observation window, both being way too distracting and at times unnerving: a nice booth will do.

The book holds her attention for all of three minutes, before she closes it and focuses on people-watching.

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"I see," Teja says. "So in your world, nobody believes in vampires even though they walk in everybody's midst, at night?"

"Some people believe, but are mocked by the others." The vampire stretches. "Skeptics, disbelievers."

"Vampires must step lightly and be ever mindful of the Masquerade; were the human race as a whole ever to turn its attention to the Kindred, the Children of Caine would be quickly wiped out. Superstition is the vampires' best weapon. By enforcing mortals' disbelief, by cultivating a smug belief in reason, by dismissing vampires' presence as the fancies of children and lunatics, the Kindred allow the mass of kine to do the work of shielding them from the few mortals who do know that vampires walk the night."

"Kine?" Teja asks.

"Humans."

"So their own superstition will ever work against them," Teja says. "Even if the superstition lies in the disbelief of what is right before their eyes, instead of the belief in a pie in the sky."

"It helps that we do not show off." The girl smiles. "It is one thing to fool them, it is another to show off and expect them to take it."

"Will none ever question why you come out only at night?" Teja asks. "Those that would have known you before you were turned?"

"I can't ever seek them out. They will have to believe me gone or dead." Family, friends, the humans she was ceases to exist in the name of the secret. "Risky, for them and me, too risky."

"So you must give up all that ever meant anything to you?" Teja says. "That is a harsh fate. Very harsh."

"Give up my old life, or draw the wrath of the Blood Hunt over innocents. Harsh or not, the choice is obvious."

"It is," Teja says, quietly. "So the Blood Hunt knows vampires exist, aft all?"

The vampire shakes head. "The Blood Hunt is an instrument of vampire law. The precept is simple: those who violate the Traditions are slain."

"If I return to my old life, I am risking the first Tradition, the Masquerade, the secrecy, and the Prince can order those I contact eliminated in the name of safety."

"Kill me, and arrange accidents for people I spoke with."

"It is a cruel tradition, but it makes sense, so the whole will not be endangered by the feelings of a single one," Teja says.

He had obeyed such harsh traditions also, when he was alive.

"So I can not have anything of the dreamed past into dreaded future. My minds will wander alone."

"Yes," Teja says. "Sometimes, that must be so."

"Or not so much: at least until this place tires of me." The vampire shrugs.

"Here, you may be yourself," Teja says. "But those that you loved before, you cannot find here."

"Times past and faces lost to the rain of time."

"Even if I could, would they not be horrified by what I am now?"

"Not if they really love you," Teja says.

Hopeless romantic that he is.

"Or they might just decide I am a demon." She gives a smirk. "I am a walking corpse. "Dead, kept going by stolen life."

"You can never risk giving them the choice," Teja says, quietly.

"No, I can not."

"Maybe I will find someone else who wants to share eternity with me."

"Yes," Teja says. "So did I, in this place. But they are not who you used to have. Someone new is new."

She falls silent, gaze turning vacant for a while.

Remembering something.

"Yes?" Teja says, gently.