My Little Ventrue Pt. 05 Ch. 01

"Y-You would!?"

"But of course. You are a very beautiful, tiny creature, Natasha. It must be a deeply exciting bout of sex, to have both of those beasts penetrating you. One for your front, the other for your delicious little derriere? And, from the way you have described it, it sounds like you experience orgasm many times. Non?"

"I... I um... y-yeah. B-But I don't think they'd agree! To being watched, I mean."

"Alas, you are probably correct. A shame."

They both nodded, and resumed their work. Or at least, Antoinette did. Natasha tried, but after seeing Antoinette naked and having some beautiful, romantic sex with Jack, she got thinking about Arturo and Matthew in a different light. She liked hanging out with them. They made her laugh, they made her smile, they made her try new things, made her feel exciting. But, romance? How would that work with two boyfriends?

And she did want romance. She wanted those little tinglies, the heart flutters, the excitement of being near the person she loved. Intimacy. She wanted someone she could confess her secrets to, and someone who would confess theirs. She wanted someone she could trust with her back, and her heart.

"... hey, P-Prince?"

"Yes Vola?"

"You love Jack, r-right?"

"Oui, beaucoup."

"And... Ashley and Julee?"

The Prince looked at her, eyes steady, fingers no longer typing, and took a long, gentle sigh. She knew where the conversation was going, she must have.

"They are my friends and my pets, and I love them dearly, but I do not love them romantically."

"... I... I wonder sometimes, about Art and Matt-t. I... w-we get along great, but I... d-d-don't know about... romance."

"I am afraid you walk in strange waters, Vola. Many cultures have embraced polygamy in varying fashions. Naturally most of these were in the form of polygyny, but there have been some to embrace polyandry. Were Arturo and Matthew brothers, I would call your relationship not so unusual, considering history."

Natasha giggled and shook her head. "N-No, they're not brothers, but they might as well be. They know each other v-v-very well, and, um, share everything."

"Dolareido is nothing if not open minded about sexuality, my dear Vola, but I am afraid it would be difficult to find an example of such a relationship leading to romance." The ancient Daeva tapped a finger on her chin, and slowly built a grin with each tap as she looked up, and then at Natasha. "I do suggest you not worry about it, my dear. If you enjoy being with these men, then enjoy it. I can understand the desire for romance, but if you seek it, it will never come. Love is terribly afraid of being in the spotlight, and if you shine a light on it, it will flee, or die."

"... d-don't look for it?"

"Non."

"B-But, how do you find it then?"

"Love is found through the self first, creating a garden for your soul, an inviting place that you care for and enjoy, with gates open. As you go out into the world, interact with the world, and share with others the garden of your soul, you may find another who will do more than pass by to admire its contents. They may stay. They may offer to combine gardens... perhaps I should have chosen a better metaphor." Chuckling, she looked back down at her laptop, and got back to work, as if the topic was one she was all too practiced with, and could talk about it while she looked at Mesopotamian history. "First the self must be a place that you enjoy, and a place you nurture. Only then will you enjoy sharing it with others, and only then will love find you, when someone else decides, of their own desire and to your joy, to stay."

It wasn't a bad metaphor. Hell it was a good metaphor. Natasha smiled as she watched Antoinette working, and put her eyes back on the screen too. It wasn't new advice, she'd heard it before; but she didn't trust the internet at even the best of times. To hear Antoinette say it though, put some weight into the philosophy. You need to love yourself, take care of yourself, and be happy with yourself first. Then, go out into the world, interact with it, and with time, you'll meet someone. The key little bit there Antoinette had glossed over, that Natasha was terrified about, was the open gates part. You had to open your gates.

No Mekhet opened their gates easily. Arturo and Matthew had forced their way through hers, and that was just the front gate. There were many gates! She had her cute little garden she liked, but it was guarded by a fortress.

Step one then, was to try and be a little more open with Arturo and Matthew. If they liked her garden, all the better. If they didn't, well, she was thankful for the enjoyable, meaningful time they'd shared. Or at least, that's what she hoped she'd feel. She'd probably feel heartbroken. And being afraid of that, made her close her gates. Arg, vicious cycle!

Deal with it later, later. Antoinette was an amazing boss for these sorts of topics, but unlike Natasha, she had the ability to control her mind and switch gears quickly. Focus Tash, focus.

"I still haven't b-been able to... to think of anything, or f-f-find anyting, about Ganesha, that could be useful."

"Summarize, s'il vous plait."

"Um, Ganesha is the... a deity in the Hindu p... p-pantheon. M-Many groups worship him. He is usually revered as... as a deity of wisdom, science, and art. And, um, also worshiped as a remover of obstacles."

"Yes, but that is Ganesha, a deity in the Hindu pantheon, as you said. Azamel is not Ganesha. She is a Begotten, a monster, a literal nightmare incarnate."

"I'm not sure how t-t-to use that information though." It's not like she could pop open a Wiki article about nightmare versions of ancient deities.

"Such is the mystery of the Begotten. Where do they come from, these horrors of the dream?"

"Fiona says it's... that it's not the spirit world." She looked over her shoulder to the large symbol on the floor. It was still an unnerving concept, that spirits existed. Safe had been the most adorable thing ever, but they hadn't managed to summon anything like that since. A few wisps had come through, colorful things, glowing like big fireflies, and some other entities with slightly more defined shapes, but nothing as profound as Safe. "Begotten, and their... h-horrors, come from the dream world."

"It is both fascinating and unnerving, that there have been humans throughout the ages that have both spoken of a higher existence that can be touched upon by the dreaming, but also, that there are dangers, lurking outside the walls of our realm. Entities beyond imagining, beyond simple definitions, beyond the limitations of matter or dimensions."

Fascinating was most definitely not the word Natasha would use to describe such entities. But, that did give her some clues.

"Kine, and... and Kindred too, I suppose, since we all dream, they t-touch the dream realm?"

"So it would appear. Or perhaps, only some do. Mystery upon mysteries." With a long sigh, Antoinette got up, took her interface tablet from the table, and tapped on it a few times. Soon the room was buried in the blue light of the strange chandelier, and Antoinette set the Mesopotamian necklace upon the room's center, in the giant symbol marked on the floor. "Any predictions?"

"About the necklace? Um... n-no, sorry."

"And about nightmares?"

"I... I... I should ask Fiona."

"Be careful with her, Vola. She may be a sweet, innocent creature on the outside, but you and I both know a monster rests within."

She nodded, got up, and walked over to stand beside Antoinette. On queue, the Prince lowered the device so Natasha could see through it, and the two of them could watch through the amber screen to observe madness unfurl. But it would take time.

"H-Have you asked Jack?" Natasha said.

"I do my best to not speak of city matters when with my love."

"I understand... b-but, you're both Kindred, and you're the P-P-Prince, and... and with these hunters..."

Antoinette lowered the device, and looked down at her, frown on her lips. "Speaking of this Angela and Jeremiah with my love is not how I wish to spend our time."

Pissing off her boss was a bad idea. Pissing off the Prince of Dolareido was a bad idea. But it needed to be said.

"You... you c-can't completely separate them, your roles and... your love life, your romance."

"So you say. I have tried to mingle love with work before, Miss Vola. Tony was the result."

"B-But... but that's not the same. You're not... trying t-to outwit each other, or... I d-don't know, I think... even though you're not in the same covenant, these problems threaten us all. And m-maybe, Jack will know something about B-Begotten, more than me."

"... I will consider your words, Vola. You speak true, and I fight against inevitability, but I would fight against it for as long as I can. You though, perhaps you could ask Jack of the Begotten? Do not feel you should coddle my love because of his connection to me. As you said, these threats are for us all. In fact..." Antoinette lowered the device completely, turned to face her, and put her free hand on her shoulder. So tall. "My dear Vola, I am ordering you to not tell me which questions you will ask of Jack. Please provide me with all information pertinent, information that you may gleam and learn from Jack, but I do not want you to let me prevent you from doing your job. Understood?"

"... understood," Natasha said.

Asking her subordinate to pull some information out of her lover, and not let her know about the specifics, to avoid her interference, was an interesting approach. Very indirect, very complicated. Very elder.

She needed to learn about Begotten, to learn about ways to defeat them. Fiona had information, and Jack may know something from Fiona. Or Tash could ask her herself. Everyone liked Fiona, her included, but they needed information. Tash also needed to find information about the hunters, but they refused to expose themselves; almost two weeks since their attack on Jack and no one had found any evidence of them anywhere. Tash also needed to look into the warning Clara gave Antoinette, about someone doing... something... to something. And that was going swimmingly! Ugh.

But for the moment, they were going to spend some time pursuing the secrets of the universe. Natasha had laughed when Antoinette had said those words, but the Prince had raised a brow at her, as if the laughter were unwarranted. And it was, the more they touched the edge of what any sane person would consider to be normal. Antoinette said it was both important to her personally, and to her role as a dragon. The Ordo Dracul was a world Natasha had not yet touched, except with limited conversations with the Prince or Daniel. What sort of figures, leaders, subordinates, and fellow practitioners existed out in the world? What sort of secret sciences and arts did they pursue? Maybe she'd met some someday.

The two looked back at the device, but still nothing came, nothing showed itself, no blue ghostly images danced or died in the amber screen.

"... surprising," the Prince said.

Tash nodded, and peeked around the screen at the symbol itself. Not that she could ever see ephemera with her naked eyes, but she knew it was there, the Prince had proven it a dozen times over with the ghostly images she'd shown her. Still, no such after-images of death or love or trauma or whatnot appeared before them.

Antoinette switched the program to something else, something called Essence Resonance. And, nodding to herself, she set it to level: light.

"You think, um, the sp-p-pirits will be attracted to it?"

"The resonance will use the properties of this Wyrmn's Nest to... create, in a way, essence that mirrors the resonance of the necklace." Another hint of its power. Natasha appreciated it, considering how few she shared.

"Sounds like l-light, how surfaces reflect back light as a color."

"Similar, yes. Now, let us watch." The Prince nodded, and then handed her the device. "You may watch this time, and see if anything crosses the barrier."

Oh yes! Natasha took it with a smile, and raised it up as she switched the device back to the previous program, the amber lens. The first time they had used this, Antoinette had wanted to keep the summoning of something from across the Gauntlet a surprise. A success, considering the creatures Tash's necklace had summoned, and the eventual spirit Safe. To have the emotion of the necklace distilled into something so artful, beautiful, meaningful, had been astounding. What else could they summon? She stared on at the device, its amber screen, and watched the glowing white dot that sat upon the symbol on the floor, only visible through the screen's alien science.

Something! They could summon something! Natasha squeaked, and pointed at the device as blue swirls started to appear in the screen. If the glowing white was a hole, a cut, something that penetrated the wall between their worlds, the blue mist and rolling waves of dense fog that leaked from it, was something on the other side coming their way. The process wasn't instantaneous; whatever was crossing the Gauntlet, it took a bit for them to find their way here, and for them to cross the mysterious barrier.

She really had to ask Arturo and Matthew about it, the barrier, about the spirit world. It seemed so beautiful from this side. How bad could it be? Well, she wasn't so stupid or naive to think it had to be pretty and nice, just because those were the sorts of things she and the Prince managed to summon, but—

A black tendril slipped out of the hole. Natasha gulped, and stepped back as she lowered the device. Without it, she couldn't see the blue swirling energies, or the strange, white, glowing cut in reality that allowed things to come through. But she could see the thing, the black, squirming, wriggling thing, force its way into their realm. Like seeing a worm push up through dirt, something ebony, inky, like slime but solid, continued to crawl from the floating space, until it fell to the floor and sat upon the center of the symbol.

Natasha took another step back. This was most definitely not Safe, or safe for that matter. Antoinette took a step forward on the other hand, and knelt down to look at the strange thing. A squid? It kind of looked like one, but as Natasha stared on, it started to float upward, its many tendrils leading its direction instead of following behind it. When it turned to face her with its tendrils, she squeaked, and almost dropped the heavy tablet.

It had an eye, on its main body, between all the tendrils. Ew.

"What manner of spirit are you?" Antoinette said.

It didn't respond. It did blink though, dark eyelid coming down over the large eye that sat between the dozen tentacles. The eye itself was perfectly circular, and the eyelid opened far too wide, so the whole of its shape was exposed. White eye, with a gray iris and black pupil. It had no mouth, even when Natasha stepped around to check behind it, on its main body. The main body was very bulbous too, and the skin bumpy, a bit shiny, and it looked kind of slimy. Far too much in common with a squid for her to want to touch it.

"M-Maybe it can't speak?" she said. "I, um, I've heard the Uratha—"

"Uratha." A wriggling voice of quiet slorps came out of the squid thing. It shivered, and floated away from Natasha. It didn't get far. The necklace beneath it was both bait and a tether, so the spirit thing managed only a few feet from it before it drifted back toward its lifeline.

The Prince smirked, tapping a finger to her chin as she analyzed. "I know the werewolves are capable of communicating with creatures from the other side. But I had assumed that the spirits themselves were incapable of speech, except for the more developed ones. Safe, was perhaps, an anomaly. I wonder, if the Uratha speak a language unique to spirits?"

"... you want secrets?" The floating eye came closer to Antoinette, hovering higher. No mouth, but the weird, slorps and shlorps and blops of its voice came from somewhere, quiet but there. "Trade for secrets."

"I guess it d-does speak English."

"Trade for secrets." The tentacles swirled, causing the eye to slowly rotate. "Trade?"

"Spirits are awfully one-track minded, are they not?" Antoinette said, looking down to Natasha as the smaller vampire approached.

"It d-does seem like, that, that they're... um... specific." They knew that already, but it never ceased to be an interesting sight, these spirits and their inability to think beyond their purview. "And maybe more can sp-p-peak than we thought?"

"I will trade you for secrets," Antoinette said to the creature.

"What trade? I know many secrets from Hisil. Know few from Gurihal."

"Gurihal?" Natasha said.

"Here! Here! Tasty treat summoned." The creature lowered itself down to the necklace, and hovered around it a few times before looking back to the two Kindred. "Trade secrets?"

The Prince set her chin in her fingers, and lightly stroked it as she contemplated. "I will trade you... knowledge about a human politician's love affair, if you tell me about the language spirits and the Uratha speak."

The squid thing copied Antoinette's motion, running one of its tentacles under its eye as if it were a chin. "Agreed." Apparently, it knew what a human politician was too. Or at least, knew that it wanted to know more about them.

"Darla Copperman has been sleeping with her hairdresser."

Natasha raised a brow and blinked at Antoinette. "... r-really?"

"Mmhmm. From what I can tell, it is purely physical, and perhaps a touch romantic. No ill intent; except, of course, that both are married and doing this behind the backs of their partners."

A politician risking her career for something as simple as good sex was a surprise. Or, maybe not. Good sex was pretty great.

The tentacle rippled, as if someone had poked a puddle. "Secret! My turn. The Uratha speak Uremehir. Spirits too."

"Uremehir?" the Prince said. "Is there an English word for that language?"

"The First Tongue."

The two Kindred blinked at the squid, then each other. "First Tongue?"

"Yes, First Tongue. Old, very old. Uratha say maybe first language for humans." The tentacle creature floated around some more, looking around at the room with the eye between its tentacles, before looking back to the two Kindred.

"I... remember, Art and Matt t-telling me they learned something, called the First T-Tongue, when they were changed." She nodded a little as she dug through the memory. "I d-didn't really... think about it, at the t-time."

"Another trade?" it said.

The Prince nodded. "Very well. Perhaps for something of greater weighter?"

"Oh, dangerous trade. Yes, dangerous. Offer?"

"I will tell you of a secret of the vampire leader here, of the Carthians, Garry Tones. Something personal. In return, tell me what the Uratha leader Avery has been doing in the Hisil."

The eye made a giggle sound, like a bunch of swamp bubbles popping. "Uratha hunting, always hunting, not secret."

"Surely she has pursued something specific and worthy of note?"

The tentacle creature started to turn in place, one of its limbs occasionally rubbing its fat body. It didn't seem to care too much if it was oriented with the floor, and with time it started to adopt positions that were upside down from how it was before; which looked normal after a while, and Natasha's brain eventually identified the old orientation as upside down. Did this creature not care where gravity was? Creature was perhaps the wrong word for a spirit.

"Avery has secret, about hunts in Hisil. Trade!"

"Alright spirit, you speak first."

"Can't."

Antoinette frowned at the floating orb, and exposed her fangs as she grit her teeth. "I shared with you first on the first trade. Would it not make sense to share with me first on the second?"