revivalproject | Are you nobody, too?

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Are you nobody, too?

WHO: Claudia, Lestat, and Billy K
WHERE: The East side of Temba
WHAT: Making a new home :)
WHEN: mid-July
WARNINGS: Toxic vampire lifestyle.

a. morning [for Lestat]
It had been a few hours now since the delivery had been made. The sun would be up soon; the quiet had already settled, and Claudia would not be going out any more before dawn, her night already gone to sitting by the remaining window and watching. There weren't many people here, it had to be said, so keeping track of them all must not have been such a chore, no one slipping through the cracks as much as there weren't any cracks to slip through. It was going to be harder, she realized, perhaps for the first time. They were being watched.

The feeling had crept over her well before she found the man at her doorstep, streets away where she had darted with intent the moment she had found the word LIBRARY on the device Lestat claimed to be too busy to explain to her. It took her some time to orient herself, find the fountain where she had been trapped in her coffin, smelled the penned animals and finally placed herself on the map. A library in this place would be wonderfully instructive, surely there would be more answers there about these people, and how they had brought them here, and maybe what it was they knew about Claudia. What she was. How to become something else.

It was nothing like that at all. It was empty, that feeling whispering up Claudia's arms as the fine hair there raised, and she shivered, resenting the cold, cold, cold, all the way down to her belly. It must have been that pair of eyes reflecting in the dark sending that creeping sensation through her, and Claudia stared back, both of them seeing perfectly through the darkness of this empty hall, watching the other tense and ready to spring.

Claudia moved first, teeth bared with a harsh hiss, and was across the hall in an instant. She didn't expect the cat to go up, feathers brushing her face as they narrowly missed each other, leaving her stunned and fangs resting on her lip as she watched the cat flutter high up onto a shelf. Cold she would remain then. As her gaze dropped down the dusty, barren boards, it was caught by a singular tome, standing up with its spine faced out like it had been carefully shelved right at the end of the row. Had it stood away from the shelf's end at all, it would have been hard to miss. It was enormous.

It dwarfed Claudia now as she sat back in their boarded up lodgings, just the tips of her boots peeking out under its massive cover as she held it in her lap. The first pages had made it clear that it was a diary of sorts, and only some of the pages had actually been used. Leaving it all alone with the cats would have been a cruelty. Though Claudia hadn't found a pencil yet to continue the record, she had entries to carefully read through while she watched for the strange man to return.

It didn't seem likely that he would just leave a golden coffin and go on his way.

b. evening [for Billy]
Most of the flowers along the path drooped heavily under their own weight, parched with wilting stems and petals clinging hopelessly. The sun was supposed to keep them flourishing, and Claudia frowned as she crouched again to consider another spray of them, their faces downturned like they couldn't share that warmth with her anymore. It wasn't like she remembered the sun all that much anyway. She snatched another stem from the ground, quick and violent this time, dragging up roots with it to add to the growing bouquet in the crook of her arm.

By the time she made it just a few doors away, it had swelled into a bushel that she carried in the fold of her skirt, the fabric gathered up in both hands and fragrant petals trailing after her. Maybe she should turn back first and leave these at home. She didn't even have a hand free to knock, staring down into the mass of flowers contemplatively, then watchfully as she carefully raised a fist still tight around the skirt to thump awkwardly against the door without turning any of her prizes out. The disturbance or noise or something Claudia was entirely incapable of sensing sent a shiver through all of the stems, which she watched with a curiously tilted head until an insect she must have plucked up with her collection burst its way out of the pile, startling her enough to go, "Oh!" and give a jerk that sent a scattering of petals around her feet.

When she was steady again, she found she was clutching her skirt quite tightly to keep her flowers gathered, crushing them into the fabric, and the bug was long gone.

Hurried now, she shouted, "Mr. Kaplan!" at the door, and gave another thumping to it this time with both hands. There might be more to find in those flowers.

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It was...a rather more dramatic piece than Lestat had been picturing when he requested the thing, though it was unmistakably meant for him. And even if it wasn't, he wasn't spending another morning feeling vulnerable behind those boarded up windows while Claudia slumbered away safe and sound, uncaring.

He brought it inside, and rolled his eyes dramatically. A book. Of course. The largest book she could possibly have found. "You're not going to talk to that one too, are you?"

"A girl needs a friend to talk to," Claudia replied, nonplussed and daintily turning another page as she tried to glance up as discreetly as possible, without letting Lestat know she cared too much about what he was doing with that funny coffin. It wasn't easy; the thing practically sparkled in the flicker of the light, keeping her eye on it and forgetting the script in her lap. "If you're not going to tell me how to make one, it'll have to be the book."

"Mm, and does it listen rapturously, ma chérie?" he mocked, without quite the usual bite.

"Where did you find it?" he asked, ignoring her barb all together as he expected the coffin, easing it open to peer inside.

Claudia's commitment to appearing uninterested did not last, and she leaned her cheek into one hand to watch Lestat, eyebrows raising like she thought a body might already be in the coffin as he opened it. She did give the book an appreciative pat as she answered, "It's been doing most of the talking so far. Did you know there were pirates here? He says he has a whole crew." Her head tilted further into her hand and she smiled innocently, like that had been all she had been asked and she had been generously forthcoming.

"Does your book say where he left his ship then?" Lestat asked, assuming she was making up stories. He would have noticed a whole crew of pirates loafing about.

"Aren't you meant to write it in? You've found some used book. I'll fetch you a proper new one."

"They must be on it," Claudia had already figured. Why the pirates had left their diary behind was the bigger mystery to her. "Can't you smell the water? Nothing worth staying for a pirate here. A city of a dozen souls, no crime will go unnoticed for too very long." Sailing away seemed appealing even to her under these circumstances. The sun was worth the risk. That pinch of frustration was softened by Lestat's offer, still slightly wary, not entirely believing it was an altruistic one. He had managed to get himself a very ostentatious coffin, though

For all his faults, Lestat could generally be counted on to shower his fledglings in gifts. Whether out of guilt, affection, or some lesson obvious motive was always unclear.

"Nothing worth staying for anyone," he muttered bitterly.

It was only recently that Claudia even realized she didn't have to settle for what she was given, and left the place where she was born and born again at all. It didn't occur to her in the intervening years that she would find somewhere else to stay, either. Forced to be here was very different. On the other hand, Lestat had made a lot of conscious choices. "What was so worthwhile about New Orleans?" she asked.

"Louis," Lestat answered immediately, voice soft and distant. Louis was what was so worthwhile about New Orleans. The people, the culture- they were all enjoyable enough, but it was Louis that held his heart.

For the careless way that Lestat treated Louis, Claudia could not imagine Lestat loved him as much as she did, and that love was ultimately not strong enough to keep her still. Maybe it was, maybe that was why she never lingered anywhere else for long, and carefully collected notes like she meant to share them with someone else. Unfortunately, there was no replacing Louis, without Louis.

"Who does he have now?" it occurred to her, thinking of Louis alone in that big house. It wasn't as though he brought his own friends around. Lestat was the only one with friends.

"..." Lestat wilted some, though he tried not to show it, dropping the lid of the coffin. "Oh, you're concerned about that now? Where was that thought when you ran off?"

Claudia had thought she made it very clear that it was unfair they had each other. Unsurprisingly, Lestat hadn't actually listened to anything she had to say, except the slights that he could hold against her. Another one for his collection, then; "Why? Have you left him for Antoinette?"

That caused his jaw to tighten, a stiff smile coming to his face.

"...I'm done with that," he said, the truth of it that Claudia herself had killed her left obviously unspoken, "And Louis and I have always had an understanding..."

"Yes, he seemed to understand an awful lot the last time I saw him," Claudia generously allowed, her own tension in her brow as she turned resolutely back to the pages of her book and tried not to succumb to an anger that said she should have appreciated Louis more when they were on the same planet. The last time she saw him was a terribly long time ago. How could she have known she would go this far? She didn't feel such longing for him when separated by only a few miles.

Lestat felt his muscles clench and had to focus to release them again. There was no where to run. The sun would be up soon, and for far too long. And this space of theirs didn't offer the same space as their little home back in New Orleans. So he constructed a barrier of words, muttering a building tirade about how ungrateful and uncaring a creature his Claudia was, though it wasn't clear who he was ranting to with no Louis there.

Was that a knock? Billy wasn't sure until he heard the follow up, and even that halted him for a moment to grin over the strangeness of anyone addressing him as Mr. Kaplan, but the urgency of it had him moving quickly after that.

He opened the door for her, eyes giving a quick visual sweep to make sure she wasn't hurt, but that didn't seem to be the reason for the visit. "That's a lot of flowers-" he noted, welcoming her inside.

It certainly was, Claudia's bright grin said, forgetting her etiquette entirely to go bustling in before Billy had entirely finished the gesture in a great plume of perfume. "One of each," she announced, "that I could see." This wasn't entirely true, as it could not be helped that she came upon a more wonderful bloom down the road from the one she had first plucked. "You must have a vase," she continued, and before he could answer she was already dropping her bounty out onto his floor. She had to smooth down her skirt, after all, then frown at the stains the flowers had left behind. "Where do you get a vase here? Any furniture, really. We have the most poorly appointed rooms as it is."

That earned an amused laugh, and Billy closed the door after her, coming to examine her bounty. "You really did, wow." He magicked up a vase and held it up to see if it met her approval. "Other than me, there's an old store people are able to find some things in. For smaller things there's the replicators but you only get a few goes on it each month. And then there's a box where you can ask for things directly from the Agrii, but they aren't always great at understanding what people mean."

With an delighted exclamation, Claudia quickly grabbed the impossible vase out of Billy's hands, twirling to hold it up toward the light for close scrutiny with her tongue between her teeth. It seemed incredibly normal, not magical at all or about to disappear again; almost too normal, in fact, plain and dull compared to how Lestat kept their home furnished. Claudia frowned at it, but still clutched it possessively against her chest as she turned back to Billy to say, "We'll need a few more than that. And I was hoping there was an artist in town, to get some paintings made. My uncle had to get something made special already, even the library is empty, it's like no one's lived here at all. What do you do when someone dies?" That must be where all of the luxury was going, if it wasn't to the living.

He could tell from that frown that maybe he hadn't done well enough, and he smiled, conjuring up a few more in different styles, some fancier that others.

"An artist, huh?" Billy asked, picking up one of the flowers to admire, "I know there's some people who painted a mural a while back, I'm not sure if they're what you'd have in mind or not. But we can work on a post to put up on the network and ask if anyone is interested?"

And oh- "You have family here?" How lucky was that. Speaking of lucky- "Well no...has? Not since I've been here at least. Which is...almost 4 years? And there's only ever been a handle of us here at a time. Not really enough to build up industry or anything."

It hardly felt lucky at all after such a short time to be properly on her own, just to be back with Lestat. It would seem to be the way things were meant to be, but for Louis' rending absence. Claudia's head tilted peeringly at being asked after them, wondering that Billy thought she was on her own, making house as a child. "Are you alone?" she returned, and glanced over her shoulder, deeper into the house that a young man wouldn't be keeping on his own, surely. The perfume of the flowers was practically overwhelming, though, and tasting the air only yielded florals, and Billy's scent, and what lay beyond was too muddied.

The fancier vases were a much better effort, and Claudia's attention couldn't be kept long from picking up the more ornate among them gleefully. "On that glowing device, yes. A wonderful way of managing the post, what an exhausting job that must be, if you think about it, of course no one would want to be doing that here. Does it do parcels, too, then?" Placing an order for a painting was so much easier than Claudia thought it was going to be.

He shook he head. "My brother's here, but most people don't have family come through with them." Honestly it was kind of nice knowing he wasn't the only one, he was starting to worry he'd magicked that as well.

"It is kind of like mail, yeah." He laughed softly and shook his head apologetically. "No, no packages though. That would pretty cool. I guess we're all close enough that we don't really need it to be sending items. Have you settled in then? Found a place to call yours?"

Outside of this place, knowing that so many people would have no family looking for them after their mysterious disappearance would have been a wonderful invitation. Here, though, it was as though everyone else was part of the same club, expected at all of the same parties, and they didn't even know death. Claudia wrinkled her nose with some frustration, all of her typical plans rendered useless and no new ones immediately forthcoming. Crouching down and stuffing stems into her chosen vase wasn't nearly as satisfying as tremulous fear.

"Not that close," was extra frustrating, like all of these elements should have been to her advantage and only worked against her. "I didn't think there was another soul here, we just walked into a house and figured no one would know. Then you showed up, and suddenly there's a parish. Only, you're miles away still. I could be screaming my head off and you wouldn't even hear me."

"Mm...well you and your Uncle could always move closer into the center of town? There's a few more people round there," Billy said, "But it's usually pretty safe around here. And if anything does ever happen, just make sure you have your device. Send me a message and I can be there for you like that." He snapped his fingers and flashed her a smile.

The directionless flower arranging must not have been very engaging, because Claudia straightened to consider Billy pensively at the suggestion, her stare strangely distant and a subtle quirk of a smile at the corner of her lips. That wasn't the problem in the least. The snap appeared to bring her focus back, making her blink and wrinkle her nose like that had also been a magic trick, and she asked, "What about police? It's just you, if there's trouble?"

He shook his head apologetically, no idea he was feeding potential ideas to the girl.

"There's nothing official like that here. No police. No government. But we look out for each other, and keep each other safe," he promised.

Maybe this could be worked in Claudia's favour. Other people in this city could take to the sky, too, unfortunately, not just one witch; she would have to plan accordingly around these extraordinary powers. Billy, for all of his wonderful ability to make something out of nothing, seemed entirely uninterested in claiming what should have been easily his.

"What about books?" Claudia suddenly asked. "Can you make books?" She would at least have a proper home to settle in while she plotted.

Billy laughed, and nodded, happy enough it seemed to share his gift with her. People requested far less than he would have expected from someone who could give them literally anything.

"I can make books," he confirmed, "What kinds would you like?"

"Oh, all kinds. Poetry. History. I was studying the ancient cultures of Eastern Europe when I woke up here, and I feel very rudely interrupted. Those books had plenty of stories about witches, like you, that I thought must have meant something else...Do you know them?" It wasn't a study that Claudia expected she could pick up again after discovering the empty library, when she felt so vastly more prepared to understand the details.

"Eastern European witches? A few actually," Billy laughed, murmuring spells and conjuring a number of books to appear from nothing. Poetry. Ancient cultures. Eastern Europe. There's a number about some countries Claudia would have never heard of, including the Republic of Transia and the Kingdom of Latveria.

Expecting an answer about what books Billy knew at best, Claudia's eyes widened and she pressed, "Are they still there...?" How curious she was about just how much Lestat had kept from her was overridden easily with a squeal of delight at the array of books that made her trip to the library even more miserable. She could have just come down the street and put in a request. She collected up as many that would fit in her arms, tracing the titles as she read them.

"A few. A lot of them got run out or killed over the years, but yeah. Most of the ones I know have relocated to America."

Billy smiled at her obvious delight over the books, glad to have found a friend who he can share a love language with. "I'll help you bring them back home later," he promised.

"Oh--no, no," Claudia insisted, trying too late to look like she simply couldn't put Billy out like that. The obvious force of her reluctance had her hesitating, trying to explain it, mouth open while she felt for the words, and felt only that she didn't have much reason to lie, "My uncle might see you. He'd be a real fool about it, bringing me home in the middle of the night like that. Best stay clear of him." She didn't appear to be having much trouble managing the weight of several volumes anyway, though she did glance around for somewhere soft to throw herself and her illustrative guides for the next few hours.

It didn't feel right to eventually send her packing with this many things, though he guessed she could leave some here and just carry what she could manage. He didn't want to upset the family dynamic.

"All right, well- anything you can't manage you can leave here and it'll be waiting for you whenever you want to visit, how's that?"

That must have suited Claudia just fine, because she beamed and let out another squeal of happiness as she spun around and set out to make this space her own as well. This one, at least, had furniture. Claudia would not say it was otherwise particularly desirable, there wasn't any art to contemplate, nor even a fire to try to warm her icy veins, and as she stepped away from the perfume of the flowers she had to wrinkle her nose, finally breathing the scent of so much life and not enough people cleaning up after it. She would take it anyhow. Maybe she could get used to a home that wasn't dead.

Her delight warmed Billy's heart and he laughed softly. "I'll take that as a yes," Billy said, "Are you hungry? Can I get you anything?" he offered, enjoying playing host to someone who let him dote. It appealed very much to his love language.

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Are you nobody, too?

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