20:53 <banana> Willie can dance for hours, but it doesn't hurt to take a break for a moment. The hot dishes from earlier in the night have just recently been replaced with finger food - tarts, potato chips, short sausage rolls in puff pastry and cracker-based canapes. 20:53 <banana> It's less sophisticated than something she might have made, but it's plentiful. 20:54 <banana> She can't help but notice someone drifting aross the dance floor in her direction. No, she really can't help it - undead and trailing a carpet of cockroaches. Almost nobody else seems to see them. 20:54 <banana> She can't help but notice someone drifting aross the dance floor in her direction. No, she really can't help it - undead and trailing a carpet of cockroaches. Almost nobody else seems to see them. 20:54 <banana> Sergio does. His attention's caught by the oncomer, certainly more than by the canapes. 20:55 <VoxPVoxD> Ugh... she shouldn't... but she has been dancing quite a lot, and the party has been going on for quite a while at this point... ah, what the hell. Crumbs can be a problem for thhhhhhh 20:55 <VoxPVoxD> Holding a cracker centimetres from her lips, she murmurs to Sergio, "You see that?" 20:55 <banana> He definitely does. "I don't suppose she's here for you, babe?" 20:56 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I wouldn't like to lay odds, love." 20:57 <banana> Sergio speaks quickly, wanting to get Willie the information before Letitia arrives and it becomes too rude to continue. "Lettie Barrows. She's one of five... elected legislators, essentially, they make night law. Blood law." 20:58 <banana> "Well, I say elected-" She's here. 20:58 <VoxPVoxD> She extra doesn't want to eat the cracker now, but she can't exactly put it *back*. She's chewing as Letitia pulls up with her bug entourage. 20:59 <banana> The vampire councillor is short, lively-faced and glamoured in what appears to be a matryoshka of sewn animal skins. Unfortunately, her eyes are flickering on and off, bugs crawling out of the sockets in the moments between normality. 20:59 <banana> Letitia bows a little. "Miss Willie Wellesley. And Mister..." 20:59 <banana> Sergio Bonasera: "Sergio Bonasera." 21:00 <banana> "Just the man it seems I need to speak to." 21:00 <VoxPVoxD> Swallowing, she says, "Good evening Councillor." 21:00 <VoxPVoxD> She looks uneasily from the gross vampire to the hot one. 21:01 <VoxPVoxD> She offers the former a slightly delayed curtsy. 21:02 <banana> The gross one: "And the same to you. Sorry to borrow your dance partner; however-" She rounds on Sergio, periodically insect-ridden flesh seeming to wink. "I have a few questions. This way for a while, please?" 21:03 <banana> The hot one: "Sweetheart, I'll.. come find you soon. I don't think the sausages would have agreed with me, anyway." 21:04 <VoxPVoxD> Willie watches the at-least-relative elder prepare to take her Sergio away. "Of course, darling. Do bring him back in one piece, ma'am." 21:05 <banana> Lettie, firmly: "I will ensure it." 21:05 <VoxPVoxD> This seems to relax Willie a bit. Just a bit. 21:06 <banana> Sergio's not bad at concealing his emotions when he wants to. He did deceive Willie for a while when they first met... and if he's more than a little concerned, he's deceiving her again. 21:06 <VoxPVoxD> Ah fuck. 21:06 <banana> Willie's momentarily alone with the crackers. 21:07 <VoxPVoxD> Snooping or imposing is only going to make whatever-this-is worse. But this is Samhain, and she is not here in her capacity as a drainer of blue blood. Forced to trust in the decorum of the hour, she returns balefully to the entrees. 21:08 <VoxPVoxD> What an entrance, though. Phwoar. Willie'd kill for that kind of stage presence. 21:08 <VoxPVoxD> Don't even fucking joke about that. 21:09 <banana> By the time her appetite is sated, Willie becomes aware of a group of three youngish people - not younger than her, but younger than the average attendee. They're the ones who updated the buffet, she thinks, but now they're watching her and whispering. There is giggling. 21:10 <VoxPVoxD> She loses sight of Sergio and Letitia in the crowd... and her eye sweeps over the threesome as she tries to regain it. She catches them mid-giggle. "Hello." 21:11 <banana> A changeling: "Erm, sorry-" But one of the others says, "Go on, then. You're the one as wanted to talk to her." 21:12 <banana> They all shuffle around the table to stare at Willie, the mystery guest, with her dessert chic and her vampire boyfriend (previously). 21:14 <banana> The guy who ermed introduces himself as, "Bywater. Dave Bywater." His mask is simple, a harlequin pattern that's taken over his skin; the other two are young women with more elaborate porcelain faces. They look like sisters; they might be twins; Willie could be forgiven for making assumptions. 21:17 <VoxPVoxD> Willie extends a crackerless hand. "Willie Wellesley, Mr. Bywater. You've all been doing wonderful work tonight." 21:18 <banana> He shakes, limp but not sweaty. "Thanks, it's a nice night. Real credit goes to the Autumn Hill -" he gestures at the ladies. "Euterpe, Terpsichore, quite possibly a credit to their season." 21:19 <banana> Euterpe (or Terpsichore): "Dave is merely a sucker, and a kind one." 21:19 <banana> Terpsichore (or Euterpe): "A sucker of Spring. What drives you to celebrate Samhain, Ms. Wellesley?" 21:23 <VoxPVoxD> Ah! How a-muse-ing. "I was invited, but that's merely pretext, and not drive. Fellowship brought me here. The desire for withness. Hard to come by in the night-city, but it seems to be a specialty of the seelie folk." 21:25 <banana> Dave: "Kind of you to say so. We like to promote that sort of thing, only, er... would you mind elaborating on that invitation?" 21:26 <banana> It's not outside the realm of possibility that the Nameless House are the only mere mortals present. That is, that some of them are. Depends on what you think of Bertie, and of the animal-head-mask people in their lamé suits. 21:28 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I represent the Nameless House. We work for you - for the night-city. The invitation came from the party organisers. Do you know Sumiya?" 21:29 <banana> Muses: "Ohhhh." They know Sumiya. Dave frowns for a moment. 21:29 <banana> "Right," he says. "I certainly don't mean to interrogate you. How are you liking the hill? Lowercase H." 21:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie gushes. "I love it. The care, the pomp, the revelry, the glamour of it all... I am having a singularly enjoyable evening." 21:34 <banana> Euterpe: "That's wonderful! I say, the difference between a ceremony and a party is imagination." 21:34 <banana> Terpsichore: "Even if we weren't very imaginative with our masks. But there are some thrilling extrapolations to look at." 21:35 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "This must all be old hat to you, but rest assured I find your masks thoroughly enchanting." 21:38 <banana> The girls put their heads together side by side and laugh again, Euterpe clutching Terpsichore's arm. Their china-doll faces aren't quite identical, but they vary only in patterns of colour. 21:38 <banana> Dave: "That's the Autumn specialty, enchantment. They'll keep you under a spell that's pleasant enough you don't particularly mind." 21:40 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "What about you, Mr. Bywater? Where are the songs of Spring?" 21:42 <banana> Bywater scratches his short beard for a moment. "We seek understanding, acceptance. Coming-to-terms. Got to wonder- how does all this categorisation of ours look like from your House?" 21:46 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I can't speak for my colleagues. But I find it... very moving. There's a weight of ritual to it, and an intimate connection of the heart to nature that I find very poetic. Asserted and defended." 21:47 <VoxPVoxD> "Ah, I must sound like a dreadful tourist. Forgive me." 21:48 <banana> Terpsichore: "You sound more into the scene than a lot of our younger people. Tradition gets a bad name, but there's good bits." 21:48 <banana> Euterpe: "Dave, how about the tradition of hospitality?" 21:49 <banana> Bywater: "Eh? Ah, why not. A song of spring, like." 21:49 <VoxPVoxD> !! 21:50 <banana> Dave turns to the table, picks up some tongs, and collects... a sausage roll. There's tomato sauce on it. Smiling a little, he turns back to Willie. "This is just a pig in a blanket, but it's important you know I helped bake 'em. For the magic." 21:51 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Better than a pig left out in the cold." 21:51 <banana> The changeling holds out both hands, one with the tongs, the other to clasp. 21:52 <VoxPVoxD> Willie plays along. 21:52 <banana> Will she eat? 21:52 <banana> Technically, this is a faerie creature offering gifts of food. 21:54 <VoxPVoxD> Taking it in her hand, she says: "I was taught that accepting food from a faerie creature meant you could never find your way home again." 21:54 <VoxPVoxD> "But I don't think that was on the cards anyway." She eats. 21:56 <banana> Dave's handshake is no firmer, but this time a light has begun to grow in the air around his grasp. There's a sweet scent on the breeze, although it may just be the pork. 21:56 <banana> Terpsichore: "You can. It is. The road may be long and thorns may bar your way but trust us, you can find a way home, always." 21:57 <banana> Green light runs up Willie's arm, soothing and energising. 21:57 <VoxPVoxD> Aaaaaah. 21:57 <banana> Euterpe: "You may even find that you return with more than you left behind." 21:58 <banana> Dave lets go with a nod of satisfaction and steps back. Willie's whole body is briefly suffused in a rapidly-spreading glow, which sinks into her skin; it feels like the exact opposite of lactic acid poisons which well up when you rest after a run. 21:58 <banana> Fatigue and small unwellnesses boil away, and she's as fresh as she was at the start of the night. She could dance another six hours like this. 22:00 <VoxPVoxD> All the fatigue from hours of dancing is gone. All the tension that had begun to trickle in like maggots out of a dead and forgotten thing ebbs away. This is the rush of warmth and comfort that comes from sharing a meal and a song with old friends, falling into bed suffused with the realisation that you've freshly fallen in love, of falling into that same lover's arms after a long and 22:00 <VoxPVoxD> difficult day... 22:02 <VoxPVoxD> But something prickles, a bramble beneath the flowers. When she remembers herself there are tears standing at attention in the corners of her eyes. Those eyes meet Bywater's. "What feeling does it cost you?" 22:05 <VoxPVoxD> To return with more than you left behind means you had to take it from something else. 22:06 <banana> Dave: "No cost but a fresh-made meal, Willie. I made a promise with a creature made of hollow rubber; learn to cook and your gifts will carry the warm breath of spring." 22:06 <banana> "It, uh, wanted to promote local cuisine. For tourism revenues." 22:07 <banana> Terpsichore: "Alas, Dave never learned to cook." 22:07 <banana> Dave: "No. But I can follow directions in the kitchen, or call upon the contract with a more general power." 22:08 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Meaning, if I hadn't accepted the food, you could have done the same thing in a costlier way?" 22:09 <VoxPVoxD> She brushes her eyes dry with a delicate fingertip. 22:09 <banana> "Aye. I'm not certain what you're imagining." 22:10 <banana> Terpsichore and Euterpe look at each other and whisper into each other's ears in turn. They're standing right there, so it doesn't actually keep Willie from hearing them, although they're muttering in a kind of conversational shorthand. 22:11 <VoxPVoxD> Willie feels a strong urge to focus past the reverie, like she might if she were drinking and realised she was tipsy and surrounded by strangers. 22:11 <banana> T: "careful to handle -- what she knows of costs -- worth the fuss?" 22:11 <banana> E: "best to be good hosts " 22:11 <banana> T: "question of good and ill, love" 22:12 <banana> E: "leave the psychology to Dave, he'll hate it" 22:12 <banana> T: "mean. watch and wait" 22:13 <VoxPVoxD> Willie doesn't look at them, because that would be ruder than eavesdropping. At least, that was how she was brought up. "I saw someone walk through a mirror, and they proffered that it came at the cost of several hours' emotion forgone." 22:15 <banana> Dave, cautiously, but gesturing with a pair of sausage tongs: "Taken in would be a better term. Okay, how to put it... we've been changed, right. By the other side. Now we're creatures of that realm as much as this one." 22:16 <banana> Terpsichore: "Somebody'll fight you, putting it like that." 22:16 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's demanour is different now. Focused, attentive. You ever have a lovely time at a party and then someone lets something slip that puts you into Work Mode? 22:17 <banana> Dave: "It's important to accept ourselves for who we are. So, having been remade Arcadian, we have this connection to dreams and stories, living stories, the ones which determine how the world works instead of being told about it like a dead narrative." 22:18 <banana> "Storyland and dreamland are basically the same thing, powered by imagination. Belief. Emotion. The things that live on the other side get their power from dreams directly - that's where they're all set." 22:18 <banana> Euterpe: "Meaning placed, situated, not a narrative in this case." 22:18 <banana> Dave: "Very true." 22:19 <VoxPVoxD> Are the seelie fae just unseelie fae who stopped short? 22:20 <banana> Dave: "So- our more limited connection to living narrative is fuelled by, erm, bathing in experience. Everyone's life is a story. A crowd with feelings intensely felt... charges us up. That's the 'power'." 22:20 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Does it have to be a crowd?" 22:20 <VoxPVoxD> "Is it... zero-sum?" 22:22 <banana> Dave: "No, doesn't have to be a lot of people. A crowd will fill you right up, more power than you can-" 22:22 <banana> Terpsichore interrupts: "That's an economic term." 22:23 <VoxPVoxD> Willie looks slowly to Terp from Dave. "Is there a more apposite vocabulary?" 22:24 <banana> Terpsichore: "What would the sum be? Are you gunna quantify feeling? We've already got our own emotions." 22:24 <banana> Euterpe: "Boy, have we." 22:25 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Is it possible to run dry of the general power that can draw down this magic without ritual? If so, then someone is quantifying it. Even if it's by a system of measures we cannot or will not ever see." 22:25 <banana> Terpsichore: "You can suck the feeling right out of someone and leave them a p-zombie. That's a different thing, and it's evil." 22:26 <banana> "The glamour of the human spirit doesn't run dry." 22:26 <banana> "Not unless you're dessicating it of your own accord. That's Keeper shit." 22:26 <banana> Dave puts the tongs down carefully, watching. 22:27 <VoxPVoxD> "Keepers being the unseelie lords." 22:27 <banana> Euterpe: "Or the other ones." 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Do it to me." 22:29 <banana> Terpsichore and Euterpe together: "No." 22:29 <VoxPVoxD> She looks at Dave. 22:30 <banana> Dave: "Ahh, you don't know what you're asking there. No way, Willie." 22:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Forgive me if I've been unclear or impertinent - can you be gentle about it or not?" 22:34 <banana> Dave: "The only kind of changelings who'd reap your spirit just for a charge of glamer are the broken ones, servants of the enemy. Unseelie un-lords." 22:34 <banana> Terpsichore: "You don't mean reaping, do you? You were just thinking about the normal exposure to strong feeling. Indignation and concern. The kind of kind of way you are wouldn't do much for Dave, but let us just try..." 22:36 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I wouldn't ask you to do something you consider unethical. Consider it a solicitation for a gleaner, rather than a reaper." 22:36 <banana> Terpsichore concentrates, then shakes her head. "It's not as simple as just taking... my love, could you try? She's got feelings, that's for sure." 22:38 <banana> The nearly-identical woman lowers her mask, which in this place means she seems to lower her face for a moment, then the illusion adjusts and you're seeing a perfectly ordinary pair of eyes. "I have it. There's fear underneath the confusion... you're afraid of us after all. I'm sorry." 22:38 <banana> Willie feels.. less 'on'. Her focus slips back to a normal level of awareness, and it isn't entirely voluntary. 22:39 <banana> She's still thinking and feeling what she was, but there may be less weight to it. It feels like she's rationalised something to herself, although in fact she did no such thing. 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I am less afraid now than I was a moment ago. Whether that's from a new understanding or some inflicted numbness... how would I tell?" 22:40 <VoxPVoxD> She wouldn't. Any more than anyone else could. 22:41 <banana> Dave: "By waiting a little while. See how you feel in the morning." 22:41 <banana> Terpsichore: "And if you wake up pissed off... well, you did solicit." 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I've lost too much blood to vampires to hold any umbrage against you." 22:42 <VoxPVoxD> "How does it feel to do? Do you feel what I've felt? Or is it like the memory of a feeling?" 22:43 <banana> Euterpe, sadly: "It doesn't take umbrage to ruin a party." 22:44 <VoxPVoxD> Willie doesn't sound unhappy. But she does sound a bit... disenchanted. 22:44 <banana> "I didn't get to feel what you were feeling. I just have to be there, experience the reaction... your self-expression, that's what powers the Wyrd." 22:44 <banana> Terpsichore: "It calls gods and goblins into being. Or it can improve the taste of a sausage." 22:46 <VoxPVoxD> Willie gestures around her. "What about all this? Was this paid for in the renewable coin of the human spirit, or does it amount to one vast and ancient sausage roll?" 22:47 <VoxPVoxD> One you would rather not see made. 22:48 <banana> Dave: "Don't take all this the wrong way. People are going to dream, and the dreams will have power. Some of that power is bled off instead of making its way to the other side? That's keeping humanity's birthright where it belongs." 22:48 <banana> "I met a wizard, once, who described the soul as they see it - a thing which is truly, inherently magical. Wizard said our souls' connection to alien realms has been sundered, taking that magic away. The way we experience that, ah, reconnection... I'm not sure he had it right." 22:49 <banana> Willie can see Euterpe raising an eyebrow before she gets her mask back on. Perhaps the Autumn girls didn't expect that from Dave. 22:50 <banana> Terpsichore: "Lemme be a little clearer about it though." 22:50 <VoxPVoxD> Please do. 22:53 <banana> "Ambiguity's keeping us all off the dance floor. The King of Autumn paid for this night in two currencies - goblin fruits that grow in Hedge-oases, and the truly ancient pact of the Tatterdam. Which predates any mortal alive." 22:53 <banana> "The season's blessing wasn't born from piddly individual emotions. There just aren't enough of those. But like the man says- all that power on the other side, all those stories, they're ultimately told by us as a collective, people waking and dreaming." 22:55 <banana> Terpsichore: "Our own souls, if you will, give off sparks which are used as a forge by alien monsters, somewhere, but we do get to take back some of that heat, and some of the weapons they smithed." 22:55 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "And you get to come in from the cold." 22:56 <VoxPVoxD> That was Emily's phrasing, wasn't it? 22:57 <banana> The three changelings cast glances at each other. It's Willie's phrasing now, and they're not too sure about it. None of them made a choice. 22:57 <VoxPVoxD> They're choosing now. 22:58 <banana> Euterpe: "I guess it's not all bad to be a weapon. You have purpose." 22:58 <banana> Terpsichore: "It would be me who- ah, forget it." 22:58 <banana> Dave chuckles at the inside joke. 23:00 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Do particular emotions draw out particular magic more acutely?" 23:00 <VoxPVoxD> "Do particular seasons?" 23:02 <banana> Dave: "It's the second thing. People who've pledged to a Hill align with a range of feeling, and the Hills do teach particular methods. Power itself is fungible..." 23:02 <banana> Terpsichore: "We might leave you guys to it. There's an open spot on the floor." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I'm very pleased to have met you both." 23:04 <VoxPVoxD> She sounds like she means it. Maybe a bit less intensely than she might have a few minutes ago. 23:06 <banana> Euterpe: "Same for us both!" They leave, and looking in that direction Willie catches a glimpse of Sergio on the far side of the party, making his way out of the darkness beyond the shadow of the Tatterdam. 23:07 <banana> Dave: "There's something I was meaning to ask... er, what is the Nameless House? What do you do for the King, or for Sumi?" 23:09 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Our background is in monster hunting. But we've put ourselves to work on behalf of the night-city. People who need help and protection and don't have recourse to the laws of day or night." 23:09 <VoxPVoxD> How is Sergio looking? 23:09 <VoxPVoxD> Besides gorgeous. 23:10 <banana> Dave: "That's damn useful. There are a lot of things out there which you simply have no idea about before you fall down the well. If you can do that job and, er, survive, you won't lack work." 23:11 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I agree, Mr. Bywater. Vehemently." 23:13 <banana> Sergio looks.. intact. He'll be here in a moment, skirting the dancers at a fast but socially reasonable pace. He smiled to notice that Willie is where he left her. 23:14 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "May I ask you one more question, Dave?" 23:14 <banana> "Yeah, of course." 23:15 <VoxPVoxD> "If you had a friend or a romantic partner who wasn't fae, or blessed or cursed in some other way... would you feel comfortable bringing them here?" 23:16 <banana> Dave: "Not really. It's not that they wouldn't be safe, or anything like that." 23:16 <VoxPVoxD> "You don't think they'd understand?" 23:18 <banana> Dave: "Nah, if we can do it.. you don't have to be a genius to fall down the well. The thing is, why should they have to? If I really loved someone, for them to actually understand... Look. For all we've built here, despite everything the Tatterdam does.. our community is born of individuals, broken, by things most of us wouldn't even describe." 23:18 <banana> "You can put the pieces back together. But why should they have to? This hypothetical lover." 23:19 <banana> Sergio: "I do enjoy hypotheticals." 23:19 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Wouldn't it be terribly lonely to keep this part of yourself hidden away?" 23:19 <VoxPVoxD> "Sergio! This is Dave. He made the sausage rolls, and he's been very patient with me." 23:20 <banana> "Nice to meet you, Dave." 23:20 <banana> Dave: "Likewise. I'll bow out to prepare the next batch, actually." Willie asked another question, though. He thinks for a moment. 23:22 <banana> "Some of us hide from ourselves. You can just never use the power, you know, and be mostly okay. I think what's more common is to have friends and relationships outside the community, and let them in if they can be trusted, but... those are personal secrets. Not the whole confronting reality of this night." 23:22 <banana> "Some of us hide from ourselves. You can just never use the power, you know, and be mostly okay. I think what's more common is to have friends and relationships outside the community, and let them in if they can be trusted, but... those are personal secrets. Not the whole confronting reality of this night." 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Your secrets, and not other people's." 23:24 <VoxPVoxD> "That's very sensible. I won't keep you any longer." 23:25 <VoxPVoxD> Once he's gone: "How did it go with Barrowsmtih?" 23:25 <banana> Sausage-roll Dave bids the couple farewell. Sergio's curious - intact enough to be curious. "Were you asking why Mari is the only one here with a mortal date?" 23:25 <banana> He frowns. "Isn't it Barrows? Either way, she was... inquisitive." 23:25 <banana> "Inquisitorial." 23:26 <banana> "At great pains to remind me that I was merely answering questions as a favour and not subject to any procedure of the Constabulary." 23:26 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Are you in trouble? Are You-and-I?" 23:27 <VoxPVoxD> Sergio can tell her mood has shifted. She's not unhappy, but her elation has deflated. 23:27 <banana> Makes sense, given the conversation they're having. "Sort of. I trust you, right? Maybe more than anyone?" 23:28 <banana> While they talk, Sergio leads Willie, if she's willing, away from the crowded tables to a spot where they can stand and be less-overheard. Neither of them is tired, of course. 23:29 <VoxPVoxD> Willie is happy to be led away. "I'd be very flattered if so. Honoured, even." 23:30 <VoxPVoxD> "It'd be presumptuous of me to say 'yes', though." 23:31 <banana> Sergio: "Then I shall say it for you. You've already picked up that my covenant, Emily's people, are considered politically suspect by the Court of the Night Mayor. You know there was a war, and who won." 23:31 <VoxPVoxD> Willie nods. 23:31 <banana> "Ms. Barrows - Barrowsmith? - She wanted to know two things, or two and a half." 23:34 <banana> "She wanted to know whether your team is working for the covenant, in what capacity, all the details. I told her it wasn't my business. She wanted to know if this was part of some attempt to take over, overthrow the Court leadership. I said that if there was, then how would I know? I've only been at this for a couple of years, and the last time I held a gun was sport-shooting in 1970" 23:35 <VoxPVoxD> Willie insinuates herself against him as he speaks, wrapping his arm around her like a shawl. 23:35 <banana> Sergio: "That led to a question of whether I am... legal. Creating vampires, it seems, now requires a license." 23:36 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "But you weren't created after the Revolution. You were created before it and kept on ice for four decades." 23:36 <banana> Sergio: "So it's not a problem. For me. But the Councillor confirms that this is not standard practice, and not in any way a requirement." 23:37 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "Right. Not metaphysics... but policy." 23:38 <banana> "She wanted to know whether the crypts beneath Inchcape are stocked with a century's recruits, sold a bill of goods and kept on ice. Like Futurama. Whether we're being awoken by stealth to take advantage of a crisis to build an army." 23:38 <banana> Sergio: "How do you answer that?" 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "I know how I would answer it. But my perspective is rather different from yours. I don't owe them my life, and may yet owe them my death." 23:39 <VoxPVoxD> "What did you sayy?" 23:40 <banana> "'I could tell you, but then they'd have to kill me'." 23:40 <VoxPVoxD> Willie laughs. 23:40 <banana> "I probably looked very brave as well as cool." 23:41 <VoxPVoxD> Willie: "May I confide something that, if you repeated it, could get you or me in trouble?" 23:41 <banana> Sergio: "You'll have to whisper very quietly." 23:46 <VoxPVoxD> Willie's breath is hot on his ear, then. "I would answer the Councillor thusly: that she knows better than I that the only thing they value less than the lives of their juniors is the lives of their cattle. That beyond high strategy, to isolate people so deeply from their lives to better use and control them is the logic of a cult. Of an abuser. The seelie folk have a word for such old 23:46 <VoxPVoxD> and wicked beings: the Keepers." 23:46 <VoxPVoxD> "I think I hate your Kindred, Sergio." 23:47 <VoxPVoxD> "But I am so grateful for you." 23:48 <banana> Sergio: :C