My Little Ventrue Pt. 08 Ch. 02

~~Jack~~

"Consider a glass cage, my love, and within, a glowing sphere bounces up and down. The cage holds the sphere perfectly still on the horizontal plane, forcing the sphere to remain locked on its vertical path. It bounces at the speed of light, which, as you know, is the limit matter may travel. No faster. 299,792,458 meters per second."

Jack nodded, eyes wide and engaged as he watched Antoinette. Understanding the world in terms of special relativity was always a troubling mental exercise, but it was one he'd taken a few shots at when he was younger, and he knew Antoinette likely had as well. Course, her 'younger' would have been when Einstein suggested the theory, and Antoinette, forever looking to the future, would have added the hypothesis to her list of key scientific theories to understand.

He smiled as he listened to her, half absorbing the knowledge and trying to wrap his mind around it, half admiring the way her lips moved, and how damn good she looked in that business suit.

"This cage begins to orbit you at a great distance, and in this hypothetical, you are able to see and monitor it instantly; do not worry for the nuances that light must reach your own eyes in reality, as we ignore that in this hypothetical. As you watch, the cage orbits you faster and faster."

"But... if the speed of light is the fastest something can move, then... isn't this example violating that?"

Her own smile grew. "How so?"

"Because, if the ball is going up and down at the speed of light, and it's rotating around me, then... Pythagorean theorum, you know? The ball would have angled paths that would be a combination of its bouncing speed, and the orbiting speed. It'd be moving faster than the speed of light on an angle."

A twinkle danced in Antoinette's eye, and she leaned forward, elbows on the glass table of her office. "Exactly. But the law cannot be violated. The bouncing sphere will have to slow the speed of its bouncing, so its angled velocity will always have a total velocity of the speed of light."

"I could literally watch time slow down and the bouncing ball slow down too, the faster the glass cage moved around me?"

She nodded again. "The infamous time dilation. This example is crude, filled with hypotheticals and caveats, but functional."

He leaned back in his chair and buried his chin in his palm. He was next to her, at the table in her big office at the top of the tower, and also dressed in a business suit. They were having a Primogen meeting later, and he was invited, both to speak of details of what happened during his attack on the hunters, but also to speak for Azamel and Avery.

The meeting wasn't for another hour though, and he was free until then.

"But, now I'm all confused. What if two people were zooming past each other at high speeds? Do they both see each other as aging slower? Sounds like a paradox."

"And that is where the hypotheticals and caveats betray us. With them, we are discussing scenarios that simply cannot be measured. If two individuals flew past each other at great enough speeds to notice such a thing, they could not see any paradox, due to perspective, and the vary nature of the speed of light being the limiting factor in how we perceive each other. There is simply no way for both parties to be able to compare their experiences instantaneously. Any and all forms of communication would suffer the very same time dilation you are attempting to measure." She sighed and shook her head. "It is forever mentally taxing, is it not? Down this rabbit hole, and suddenly, you realize your very experience of existence itself is subject to the whims of the materials of the universe."

"I have heard some mathematicians go mad."

She laughed and shrug. "Understandable."

"Wait, so, if I left Earth at a super high speed, I'd see the Earth as aging slower, and an observer would see me on the ship, aging slower?"

"Yes, but again, that measurement cannot be made."

"But, if I turned around, and came back at a high speed until I was face-to-face with whatever observer was on Earth, then... I'd have created a paradox, where both me and the observer expect to find each other aged slower? Because I'm flying away super fast, the observer sees me age slowly, but to me, they're the one flying super fast away from me, and they're aging slowly. I fly back, same effect occurs. Me and observer both see each other as having aged slower than the other?"

"No, because your journey had two elements to it. Flying away, and flying home. Two different measurements, that create a different skew of the flow of time, not unlike two sides of a triangle being compared to another, single side, the side of the observer whose initial frame of reference did not change, while yours did."

Jack dropped his forehead onto the table, and started gently sliding it back and forth so it bumped along. "Ugh, ok, so... if... I'm flying away, and the observer sees me taking a trip that takes a year to reach my destination. Observer knows that, while he saw it take a year, from my perspective in the spaceship, it took less. In my perspective, a year hasn't gone by yet... let's say a three quarters of a year went by, for me to arrive at a distant planet. Then I fly back, and... but... in my perspective, I'm thinking the observer is aging slower than me, and--"

"Except, in this problem, your frame of reference remains the Earth. You must adjust your coordinate system in two separate circumstances if you are to measure and consider this problem from the point of you, the person in the space ship, but normally your reference point should remain unchanged through this hypothetical dilemma. You accelerate away from the earth, and then accelerate toward it to return home. Even if you changed the point of reference to be your space ship, and it was the Earth moving away from you for the first half of your journey, you would then be the one that has to catch up to the earth, speeding away from the reference point you original chose. Your point of reference would be your original vector, a vector you leave behind on the return trip. It would not simply follow you, because while velocity is relative, acceleration is not. We can objectively assume that you have left your frame of reference halfway through the journey, or arrived at it, depending on how you measure it, because we can measure the acceleration you used to create that change."

Jack just stared at her. "... you are so hot right now."

Laughter filled the room, sweet, delicious, and a touch husky. After a time, she smiled at him and rolled her eyes. "I could wear glasses, if you would like? It has been some time since I have dressed as a sex-starved librarian for my pets."

Jack choked on another laugh. "Ashley and Julee are into that?"

"Are not we all? A quiet, intelligent woman, with a grand reservoir of knowledge, who desperately hungers for a frequent outlet for her large, endless sexual desires?"

He had to admit, that was a very sexy image. Lots of masturbation sessions to porn in that general category.

"Hey, Antoinette, I... I wanted to talk to you about something."

More chuckles. "Are we not talking of something at this very moment?"

"Ha, I meant something... something less fun."

Her laughter stopped, her smile faded, and she settled back in her chair. "Oh?"

"Um, yeah. It's..." Oh god, how to word this. Maybe he shouldn't have said anything? Why question a good thing? "Sometimes, I wonder... about us." Her eyebrows shot up, and he cut her off before the world exploded. "Not what you think! Not, not really. Just, sometimes I wonder about us, because... well." He slid his chair in a bit closer. "I love these kinds of conversations. I love being able to talk to you about shit like physics, and you take it seriously, and give amazing insight. I like that I can talk to you about music, and you take it seriously, and give amazing insight."

"Are you saying you only appreciate me for my mind?" The shock on her face faded, partly replaced with a playful grin.

"Ha, no. I'm saying... our relationship is unique. Very unique. And honestly, sometimes I wonder what... what I can give you," he said. She tilted her head to the side, grin vanishing again, but said nothing. "You know so much, and have been through so much. Growing up, I was always under the impression committed relationships were about two people growing together, but I... don't really see that happening with us. I'm certainly growing, every moment I'm with you, but I don't know what I'm providing you, how I could be helping you grow."

She leaned back, and tapped her fingers on the glass table with one hand, while the other pulled her hair over her shoulder to begin combing it. Instead of the confident, powerful woman he almost always found, Antoinette looked nervous. That, was a very strange look to see on her, and he gulped as he watched the woman of his dreams deliberate.

"You wish you were with someone closer to your age, someone who could... evolve with you, as you aged."

"I'm not saying that." Ugh, why did he bring this up? Why why why did he listen to Damien? Bleh, he knew why. Because they were thoughts he'd already had, about this strange, amazing relationship he found himself in. "But, I... I am saying, that it's something I've thought about. Not in the sense that, I think it's something I should have, or that what we have is worse or better or..." He rubbed his buzzed hair and sighed. "I love you, Antoinette, and I have no intention of ending this relationship. But I do wonder about this kinda stuff sometimes, about how different we are, about whether I'm able to provide anything in this relationship."

She met his eyes, her crimson gaze reaching past his face and into his soul. They'd stared longingly into each other's eyes before, many times, and he was quite comfortable meeting her stare now. Usually. Right now, she looked at him with something more than loving eyes. She was analyzing him. On anyone else, the analytical expression wouldn't merit notice, but Antoinette didn't let people read her expression unless she wanted them to, or was comfortable enough to lower her poker face. And her analyzing eyes were like the eyes of some grand, calculating machine. Made him think of the sphinx gates in The Neverending Story.

They made him feel very small. And that was the worry, the one concern he had about their relationship. Most relationships were built on two people being equals, but Jack was her inferior in so many ways, even if she denied it.

"Jack," she said after a cold eternity, "it is true that I am much older than you. It is true that I have experienced far more than you, and despite how our undead minds resist change, half a millennium of second life has molded me. It will be many hundreds of years, before you will be able to appreciate events and circumstances with the same perspective as I."

"Yeah." That made him wince.

"And, it is true that I have a wealth of knowledge above yours, that which surpasses typical metrics. Hundreds of years of experience has taught me much."

"Yeah..." This conversation was starting to hurt.

"Jack." She reached out and grabbed his hand. "If I asked you, to consider whether you had a personal bias clouding your judgment, in any matter at all, not just this one, how would you respond?"

He raised a brow. "I would... agree, undoubtedly. I'd do my best to see past my biases. I'd try and be as objective as possible, and I'd ask for some outside opinions, cause I'm only human -- er, vampire -- and I know I could never be a hundred percent objective about anything. I try my best to always accept that I could be wrong about anything, I think."

"You are self aware."

"I guess. Kind of a hard thing to define, right? I don't know if--"

She laughed and smiled at him. "Your very admittance of an imperfect understanding is exactly what I am talking about, my love." As her mischievous smile returned, she pulled on his hand, harder, until he had to stand up. And before he knew it, he sat on her lap, sideways, and blinked at her. "Do you have any idea, my love, any idea, how rare a quality that is? Can you fathom how rare it is for the average kine, or indeed, average Kindred, to think to themselves 'perhaps I do not know everything'? Do you have the slightest inkling, on how rare a trait it is for someone as young as you, to have the self awareness to understand that what you see is not a perfect recreation of reality, and that your biases color your perspectives to the extreme?"

"I mean, I get that not everyone's a thinker, but--"

"It goes further than that, my love. I am not speaking of intelligence. I am speaking of wisdom, a wisdom that most only learn through decades upon decades of suffering, and only when they are so lucky as to survive their own stupidity. To look around you and think 'I do not understand this world, and my journey to do so will be a never ending struggle, a struggle worth pursuing' is a perspective on the universe that so few ever achieve." Sighing, she hugged him, and pulled his head to hers until their foreheads touched. With him sitting on her lap, and her being as tall as she was, they were eye to eye. "The greatest philosophers of history started with such a viewpoint."

That managed to pull a smile out of him. Any stroke to the ego was candy for a Ventrue, or anyone for that matter.

"Greatest philosophers, mmm?"

She laughed again. "Oui. The ability to simply look at yourself, and consider not only that your own understanding is imperfect or limited, but others may provide a superior, more detailed, more nuanced, and more logical perspective, is wise beyond all measure. And the awareness to apply this reasoning to every aspect of your life, is..." Grin growing, she leaned in and kissed him. "I have told you before, you are an old soul. There is much about us where we are equals."

He'd be blushing horribly if he'd been Blushing Life right then. "Yeah?"

"And, that is not all."

"Oh?"

"There is something, something important... where it is I who falls short."

He tilted his head to the side, and eyed her closely. Her poker face was gone, ripped away by her own words, and he found himself lost as he stared into her eyes again. Now, as if from nowhere, he found sadness. Not the sadness he was familiar with, sadness caused by pain, visceral pain, family pain, loss and mourning. That wasn't what he saw on her face. The sadness he found there was like looking into an abyss of coldness. It was the sort of sadness he figured you might find on a reluctant king or queen, someone forced into their position, someone who lost everything that they used to know.

"What?"

After a long sigh, she closed her eyes, and kept her forehead against his. "For many my age, it is impossible for us to connect, emotionally. We have left that part of us behind. The older Kindred become, the more difficult it is for us to find, or accept, true intimacy with another."

"Jaded?" He tried to not think of Jacob and Minerva, or even worse, Maria, and the only man who'd probably ever love the corpse woman, Lucas.

"Perhaps. Much of what brings joy to a soul, loses flavor over the centuries. Many Kindred, as they enter their elder years, become obsessed with their work, their covenants, their goals, and the very idea of finding contentment becomes alien. We become slaves to our ambitions and our Beastly instincts. It... it takes much, to stir genuine emotion within us." Her arms slipped around him and held him by his waist. "I have told you this before."

He nodded, forehead still against hers. "Yeah, but... I... I guess it's hard to understand."

"Of course. And you will not understand it for centuries yet. It is the curse of immortality."

Wait. He lifted his head, looking up as he scanned memories. "This reminds me of a Conan story."

"Conan?" The Prince raised a brow, and Jack couldn't help but laugh.

"Conan the Barbarian. The story had a bunch of these immortal beings in it, and when they grew tired of life, they would kill themselves in a ritual suicide. It..." He chewed on the thought for a moment, before leaning in and setting his head against Antoinette's shoulder. "They were villains in the story, but it was sad. They lost the will to live, for no other reason than they'd been alive for too long."

"Then the author displayed startling wisdom. Life is precious because it is short. Our second lives are different, and it is the struggle of all Kindred to find joy in immortality." Her left arm raised, found the back of his head, and her fingers stroked his hair and scratched his scalp. Ah, heaven. "You fear that you bring little to our relationship, and are perhaps a leech, drawing from my experience and life knowledge. And yet, here I sit, fearing that I am the leech, attached to you and offering nothing in the way of emotional satisfaction, while I siphon empathy and passion from you."

She was afraid she was leeching from him, and damaging him. Wow.

He melted into her touch, turned his head, and kissed her neck. "It's a strange relationship."

"Indeed. I did not... open myself to you lightly, Jack. At first, I found your open soul and lack of experience to be a delight to tease. It was a fun game for me. I hope it was fun for you, as well."

"I mean, kinda? It was definitely scary, having the queen take an interest in a random, new squire."

She laughed. "And, with every encounter, I realized how much more there was to you, little Ventrue. I realized that you were precious, quickly becoming precious to me, and that... that I had fun with you. Genuine fun, different from the master and servant relationship I have with my ghouls. With you, there is... an indescribable feeling, more than a simple desire to tease and spoil, or to rear. You are... a missing piece. I feel complete when you are with me. And I worry that I am using you." Her laughter vanished, and the somber coldness in her eyes returned.

But before she could say anything else, Jack kissed her. Not one of their quick, fluttery kisses, but a long one, a deep one, one that he'd normally let her trigger, not the other way around. As the conversation went on, it'd become painfully clear that Antoinette was just as insecure about their relationship as he was. Her concerns were vastly different than his, but she still had them.

And that made him feel a lot better, in a strange way. Antoinette always seemed so secure, so confident, like everything she did was a perfectly calculated plan. Considering how many experiences she'd had, every action she did probably was something she'd calculated as a reflex, cause she'd done it dozens of times before. Except, not this, not romance like this, not with someone as young and different as him.

Mutual uncertainty. Something to bond over. Something to overcome together.

"I've never felt like you've taken anything from me," he said.

Her smile brightened. "And I--"

Knock knock. Before Jack could get off Antoinette's lap, the door to her office opened, and Elaine walked in.

"Ann, I--oh. Hello Jack." The blonde woman's lips cracked into a big grin, and she walked over to them, hips swaying with deliberate, exaggerated motions. She wore a business suit like the Prince, and the skirt highlighted the shape of her wide hips and curvy thighs. Nothing like a woman in a suit and skirt.

"Elaine. You are early." Antoinette didn't react to Elaine's approach; probably heard her coming, while Jack had been a little too distracted. Another one of those age difference things, presence of mind, a skill Jack seriously hoped he'd eventually learn.

"Yes. I thought we should talk again before the meeting, about how much of the Ordo you are willing to share with your Primogen. But, it appears I interrupted something?" Her evil smile continued as she casually walked up to the chair Jack had abandoned, and sat in it. She leaned back in it, set her hands together on her lap as she crossed her legs, and watched him and the Prince with expecting eyes.