(no subject)

[witchfinder_general]

[[OOM: Father Harman is being observed.]]

The door opens, and Father Pearse Harman enters.

He is wearing his long dark coat and carrying some books and a small laptop computer. He  closes the door behind himself, puts his things down on a table, takes off his coat to put it over the back of his chair, orders tea from a rat, and then sits.

Over his tea, he looks around to see who else is here.

Comments

[chime_ra_tilt]

There is someone sitting at a nearby table, poring intently over the great stacks of books with which he has surrounded himself. His off-white garb and hood covers him from head to foot. Only his fingers and his face are bare, showing his skin to be grey stone marked with dark pebbles of rock, and his hair like lavender wire.

Zelgadiss cannot repress the dissatisfied twist to the set of his mouth as he sets aside yet another book and picks up the next, but he will not give up.

[witchfinder_general]

Father Harman has often been wondering where all the non-humans are who are not vampires or, presumable, werewolves.

Here there finally is one.

The priest gets up and walks over.

"Good afternoon," he says.

[chime_ra_tilt]

Zelgadis looks up from his book, eyeing the approaching man.

"Good afternoon," he replies, even but but with reserve. There's a question in it - why approach him? There is almost a kind of suspicious edge in his look.

[witchfinder_general]

"Are those from the library upstairs?" the man asks, sounding mildly curious, if anything.

[chime_ra_tilt]

"Yes, they are," Zelgadiss replies. "It's much preferred to research here, than to trek across the world in hopes that the next city's library will have something worth finding."

[witchfinder_general]

"Especially as the space inside the library here is non-linear, so one can presumably find any book ever," the man says. "I very much like doing my research here."

[chime_ra_tilt]

"Presumably," echoes the chimera, coolly. The information he pursues still eludes him, even here. "I do not know that I enjoy it, but it is still better than the alternative."

[witchfinder_general]

"What are you researching?" the priest asks.

[chime_ra_tilt]

"Chimeras," he answers, shortly. When he picks up his glass of wine, Zelgadiss is very careful not to let the tips of his fingers grate against the glass.

[witchfinder_general]

"I know several definitions for that term," the priest says. "Which one do you mean?"

[chime_ra_tilt]

Zelgadiss takes a slow sip - more than a sip, really - of wine before answering.

"Chimeras made by magically combining two or more beings together."

[witchfinder_general]

"Does that happen often in your world?" the priest asks.

[chime_ra_tilt]

"Not often, no," Zelgadiss replies. "It is not a branch of study that is well-regarded, as it involves drastically altering living beings, and their consent is not always a factor."

He may try to keep his tone from darkening, but it does little good.

[i_am_your_host]

From somewhere behind him, a slender leather-coat-clad figure ambles out of some shadowy corner trailing cigarette smoke.

"Hallo, Father Harman," he greets the priest in a husky murmur, sounding more seductive than necessary.

Granted, the Emcee is always more seductive than necessary.

[witchfinder_general]

"Good evening, Emcee," Father Harman says, turning around and looking up with a smile.

"How are you?"

Except always dancing on the lip of the volcano, of course. That is a given.

[i_am_your_host]

Oh, he has no idea.

"Wunderbar, darling."

As he moves around the table, he drags his fingers across the back of Harman's shoulders.

"And yourself?"

[witchfinder_general]

"Do have a seat," Father Harman says, unfazed. "My job gives me a bit of a headache lately" -- understatement of the century -- "but now I'm here no phones are ringing, and I have tea."

Father Harman doesn't require much. Above and beyond the resources he has anyway. Oh, and a satellite to shoot into orbit.

[i_am_your_host]

Unfazed that he's unfazed, he graciously bobs his head before pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table.

"That is why we often seek refuge here, isn't it?" he says, as he loosens the belt of his coat and undoes the buttons. Sweeping it open -- he's wearing a white tuxedo shirt, unbuttoned halfway down -- he turns the chair around and straddles it. The wide open collar exposes his pale throat.

"To get away from jobs, headaches, and ringing telephones."

As he crosses his arms across the back of the chair, the fabric of his shirt moves. There may or may not be a pair of neat, circular puncture marks on the side of his neck.

[witchfinder_general]

"And for the research and the wider perspective," Father Harman says. "At least for me. It must be so different for you. This place is most likely very tame, compared to what you're used to at home."

Then, when the Emcee moves, Harman notices the puncture wounds at once.

"Except for the vampires, which I suppose you don't have at home. Was that Eric Northman?"

[i_am_your_host]

"Oh, this place has had its wild moments. One just has to know where to find them."

He smirks around the end of his cigarette as he takes a drag, wondering how long it would take Harman to notice the marks. Not very long at all.

"Herr Northman?" he says, his tone facetious. "The tall, blond Viking?" His pronunciation lingers on the V. "Why, yes. Was he one of the vampires you had warned me about? I forget."

[witchfinder_general]

"You found a wild moment quite well," Father Harman says, with a little smirk. "And yes, Eric Northman is the tall blond Viking, and I am sure I warned you about him as he's apparently the one most likely to be active at this time. It seems Dracula was here at some stage, but left."

After doing Things to Inspector Javert. Harman still finds that a very special kind of darkly ridiculous.

[i_am_your_host]

"A couple of moments, actually," he murmurs, wryly correcting him.

"In any case, however many active vampires there are around here, I do not actively seek out their company. But I've gotten the impression that you don't like Herr Northman very much." (Understatement of the year?) "Funny, I find him rather approachable."

In this case the definition of 'approachable' means that you may approach when he wants you to.

[witchfinder_general]

"I don't," Father Harman says, "but I don't see the point in giving you a lecture about the evils of vampirism and the fact that, at least in my world, a vampire's bite makes the victim extremely susceptible to suggestion, so everything after the first moment he sank fang into you has to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Your perception of events is most likely very far from a potential recorded truth."

He sighs.

"But the truth about vampires, at least in my world, is not really neutrally recordable as they don't show up in mirrors, on photographs, film, video and so on. And I suppose you did it for the experience, which you got, whether it was illusionary or real. Furthermore, I do suspect that you won't let me take you briefly to my world to sterilise your puncture wounds. So there's no practical criticism of your behaviour that I could come up with that doesn't fall squarely into the realm of 'not my business'."

[i_am_your_host]

The Emcee listens, chin propped up in the palm of his hand, blinking slowly.



Then,

"Well, you're no fun at all, darling."

[witchfinder_general]

"You were hoping to see me spit fire and brimstone, to fulfil your expectation of priests, of vampire-hunting ones in specific, and for your secret or not-so-secret entertainment?" Father Harman says, with a little smile.

"I am so sorry to disappoint. That offer to disinfect the puncture wounds stands, of course. If you ever change your mind before it's too late."