undergrounds | Working Dinner -- for stauncherhearted

Politics were always a messy business. His own father had been in the House of Lords, so it was no great revelation for Coward upon coming of age. Circle Daybreak had been no different, nor had the Night Council. He'd sat in all three, watching the machinations at work and the dancers going through their steps. By thirty, he'd been skilled at it himself. Skilled enough to weave between Daybreak and Midnight, to represent witches while helping to organise a coup of the human and supernatural governments. It had failed, and most of the work was unknown, but he remembered. Even if few others did.

Still, that didn't mean personal feelings didn't crop up. Not of love, no. God in Heaven, no. Those... Well.

But he respected the young witch. He admired the bold streak in the Midnight witches these days. It came and went, he knew. After all, they'd begun to be something of a presence in his day. He'd hoped to bring them into the light. Make them something. So he wanted it to be clear why he had metaphorically gotten into bed with their enemies. Especially as he had a personally professional relationship with the woman out to dinner with him tonight.

It was a quiet place, discreet without being obviously so.

The menu was, perhaps, more expensive than he usually chose, but this was a working dinner. Not as bloodworker and client, though that would no doubt come later when he gave her a ride home with his driver. Just a bit to tide him over. Her other services... Well. He saw the appeal. Any man would. But those, he refrained from for... personal reasons.

"Thank you for coming tonight," he offered with a slight but sincere smile. "I wanted to apologise for my support of Circle Daybreak. I'm well aware that they're making things quite difficult."

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Nancy blinked slowly, leaning forward just slightly. "Really? That's-" she wanted to ask when but she knew that it was generally not a good idea to ask vampires how old they were.

"That's outstanding." Already she has a million questions, but it wasn't her place.

"Officially, I was part of Circle Daybreak, of course." He smiled faintly, shaking his head. "We had no known covens back then. But there was a man who was organising them. Us."

And that man... Well, he'd been willing to follow him into anything. He still was.

The parallels begin to emerge.

"We've only got one, now," she pointed out with just a bit of pride. She did love Shadow Coven, and those in it.

"Yeah? May I ask what happened?" He seemed to be leading.

"We tried to make a coup."

He almost laughs as he says it. After all, it's no difficulty to see what's going on. How history repeats itself. And he doesn't want to see these girls go down that path.

At least not in the same way.

"Night Council. Parliament."

He shakes his head, but there's a smile. Foolish youthful pride.

"It failed, of course."

"Oh." She can see it all playing out in the blink of an eye. But that wasn't what they wanted. They didn't want to take things over, they just wanted to be safe and to be allowed to exist and practice their magic.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"The Night Council left me to the human authorities. Parliament. Who were happy to call it treason."

Which was and probably always would be a capital offence. No one had thought to check for fresh wounds. To see if something had tasted his blood and put its own into his mouth. No one had even thought to make sure he actually died.

Her jaw dropped. "They put you to death." And here he was. No wonder he would never have sympathies for the Night Council or Daybreak.

It almost seemed crueler, to hand him over to the humans.

"Sentenced to hang from the neck until dead." The Night Council would likely have killed him, too. What he had done was treason against all fronts. But, oh, listening to Lord Blackwood... He'd have done it all over again.

"But human jails have no security against vampires. So, it was easy for one to slip in and offer me the chance to live after death. I accepted."

Her image of it all took on gothic romantic tint as she listened. A vampire stealing in in the middle of the night to offer a condemned man eternal life. It fit the image so many humans had of vampires.

"You gave up magic for immortality."

"I was going to die the next morning. I had the choice between losing everything... and losing my magic."

An easy choice, ultimately. But one that he sometimes wondered about.

"But it was my choice to make."

"I hadn't thought of it that way." She ducked her head slightly in apology. "Forgive me, Lord Coward."

He waved off the remark with one hand.

"It's something I think about a lot. I miss it-- the magic I could do. But I wasn't ready to die. I wasn't done serving, either."

"The man who lead you- was he the one that turned you?" Probably another more private question than she should be asking, but her curiosity had been piqued and there was nothing that Coward would be able to do to turn her away.

"They caught him before the coup. Let the humans try him for murder and convict him. He was hanged."

How he'd been reached by a vampire, Coward couldn't know. It's an old story to him, but it's an important one. One he doesn't mind telling, especially to a young witch. And especially to one who feeds him.

"He told us he would return. Then-- there he was at my door. Three days later. He told me what I was and asked me if I was still loyal to him. I was, and so he finished his transformation."

Human blood, required to turn. His own had been someone he'd hunted. He'd had no disciple to go to.

"Then, when I was caught, he came to me and offered me immortality." He paused, his voice almost trailing off. It was... somehow reverent and sentimental. "An eternity of serving him."

She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. "Your blood is what did it." There's reverence in her voice as she looks up at the older man. It made their relationship all the more poignant in her mind.

There were few people she would have let use her blood for transformation, she'd like to think, though truthfully, if nearly anyone came up to her, she'd let them. Preferably if they paid, but if she had a relationship like Coward had with his sire? Of course she would.

Fagin expected that all of his children would die for him, would feed him one day of their own free will. Hopefully, none of them would.

"Is he...?"

"In Barbados, last I heard. Or, at least, according to his last letter."

Coward smiled a little, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands together.

"He enjoys travelling a great deal. I felt like returning to London."

Still alive, then, in a manner of speaking. Nancy settles back in her chair.

"I'd be interested in meeting this man." Not to plan a coup. But. Out of curiosity.

"Well I'm glad you came back, it means we got to meet."

"As am I," he murmurs after her last remark. "I must admit, I didn't expect London to be so interesting."

The politics alone were marvellous. Unrest from political parties, clashes against what had been established for so long.

"If Lord Blackwood ever returns to England, I shall be sure to introduce him to you."

"A lot must of changed," she murmurs, more as an aside than anything. The effect is almost theatric.

"I'll look forward to it."

"I do apologise if my actions as of late have been worrying for you and your coven. But have no doubt, you have a friend in me."

One that knew how to move through the shadows. How to make a cult a force to be reckoned with.

"Thank you, Lord Coward." She spoke plainly. "I won't doubt it."

Working Dinner -- for stauncherhearted

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