singillatim | but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

but a strange light in the sky was shining right into my eyes

JANUARY 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — THE AURORA: NASCENCE: Following the strange dream at new year, a three-day Aurora takes place. During which, Interlopers discover a possible ally in the mysterious woman heard in the static and heard in the dream — potentially earning new abilities.

PROMPT TWO — ADUST: The Interlopers find out what happened to the owners of long-destroyed Milton House in the form of hauntings.

PROMPT THREE — THE VISITOR: Interlopers find themselves with an unwelcome visitor — a shadow doppelganger here to make everything absolutely worse.

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

WHEN: January 13th - 15th.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially disturbing dreams; dreams of being burned alive; some minor supernatural horror; some minor ‘ghost’ horror/hauntings; death of npcs in various ways including suicide, murder or exposure to elements.

In the middle of the month, it happens. A herald. The noise starts: faint at first, but then growing louder. An ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds difficult to place. There’s a kind of electrical buzzing with it all, a low, endless hum punctuated with cracks and pops. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night: The Aurora has come.

Much of what happened previously happens again: Streetlights, illuminating the town’s roads; lights in stores and homes will come alive, buzzing and flickering at times. Previously abandoned cars will turn on, their headlights blaring. Electronics that had previously seemed broken flick on — and whilst there are no broadcasts available on televisions, and the radio waves only drone on in static, both only occasionally blaring standard emergency broadcasts. Any computers and phones will turn on, but will have no internet or reception. Instead, Interlopers may find texts and emails — many of them unsent. The everyday lives of their users stored within, now readable.

There are still some instances of the ‘ghosts’ from the previous Auroras, but they are now only faint outlines, and far fewer in number. However, whilst the Aurora would usually only last until the next morning on sporadic nights over the month — this time it will last for a full three days. The world is plunged into darkness, a seemingly endless night with only the Aurora to light the skies.

On the second night of lights and noise, a voice calls out to you: static-like, and distant — as if someone speaks over a radio. A woman’s voice. It is the same one you’ve been hearing for a few weeks now, but finally it is far stronger than the scant whispers of name and the word ‘help’. She is far clearer now.

“You.” she says. She may whisper your name, too. “I see you.” You’re unable to speak back, the communication is only one way. She sounds upset, but there’s something more… a kind of wonder, perhaps.

”It’s not just a regular aurora borealis, but then you probably worked that out already, haven’t you? It’s so much more than that. Everything is… changing.”

”I don’t know how you can go back. But— but I can help. Maybe. Maybe I can make this place easier, somehow. I need help, but I’m stuck—” There’s frustration in her voice for a moment. ”It took from you. Took you away. It doesn’t always have to take. We can take, too. Sleep. I will help you take back. You will survive this. You will not go into the Dark. This is not the end.”

You have no idea what that means, for the most part. But you might just end up taking the chance and doing as the woman asked, even if it’s difficult with the noise and light with the Aurora. Sleep, and a dream may come to you.

FREE RUNNER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are a magnificent stag, galloping through the snowy woods with ease. You seem to go on and on, never tiring, never slowing. You feel like the wind, or perhaps the very wind itself carries you. Not once do you stumble or fall, even when the snow is thick and deep, or the ground is shaky and uneven beneath you. You feel free.

When you awaken, you feel the most refreshed you’ve ever felt since you first came here. For the final day of the Aurora, you are bursting with energy and even when the lights in the sky fade — that revitalised feeling within you remains. There’s something within you that understands: you are the Free Runner. The ground will yield beneath you, your energy will not desert you, the wind will carry you.

LIGHT BRINGER: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream of sitting by a lonely campfire in the mouth of a cave at night, warming your hands. As you sit, a strange feeling comes over you, a desire to reach out to the flames. And so you do, reaching with both hands into the fire — gripping at the white-hot embers. It burns you, and for a moment there is blinding hot pain as the fire suddenly explodes around you, consuming you whole. But the pain soon stops. The fire doesn’t burn you. No, you have become the blaze — your body warmed. You burn bright enough that the darkness around you turns into day.

When you awaken the next morning, you feel warmed and comfortable. As if even the coldest of winters couldn’t reach your bones. The warmth remains even when the Aurora ends, and you are left with the innate understanding:you are the Light Bringer. The power of flame is at your very fingertips. You master the light, life, warmth.

AURORA CALL: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape. You dream you are standing in the very sky itself, at the Aurora’s height. Colour and sound twirls around you, within you — and you feel it curl into your body. Your head fills with noise, a chorus of voices calling out, snippets of conversation echoing within you. A woman’s voice calls to you, it is the same voice that spoke to you before you slept: “Don’t you understand it now? We are all connected. The Aurora connects us.”

And you do, you do understand it.

When you awaken, you feel connected to the world around you. To the very people who live amongst you. You feel less lonely, a kind of kinship with others. You have heard the Aurora’s Call and you have answered it, unlocked a connection with your fellow Interlopers. You will be heard.

NOTHING: The colours of the Aurora dance around you in your dreamscape, but only for a moment. The edges of your vision begin the blur with black, slowly closing in until everything goes dark and you fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. You awaken, and although you feel rested, as if the dreamless darkness has helped you feel a little more ready to take on the day — nothing else about you has changed.

ADUST

WHEN: From mid-month to month end.
WHERE: Milton House.
CONTENT WARNINGS: fire; house fire; death of a child/children; hauntings; ghosts; mental manipulation; illusions of burning/being burned; potential injuries via falling/unstable building collapsing.

There is a reason why it is advised to avoid Milton House other than the simple fact that it’s a miracle the house is still standing. Once one of the largest buildings in the town of Milton, it is now a former shell of what was once a fine and grand house. It has lain in ruin for many years, dilapidated and host to a great deal of fire damage.

While he is in town, Methuselah will not speak of the place, but he often looks sad when it has been brought up in conversation. “A great tragedy.” he will say before falling into a pensive silence. “A blackened mark on the town’s memory.” He does not wish to say much more of what happened: sometimes there are things that are just too painful. He will continue to advise the ruin is left alone, out of respect, and the fact that the place is a danger.

Of course, advice will not stop anyone from attempting to get into the ruins and exploring the house, even if it is in fact highly dangerous.

The sounds of voices and whispers may be enough to pique anyone’s interest. You're sure you heard something, maybe you should go to check it out?

It is true in the fact that the house itself is incredibly dangerous structurally: floors and stairs may give way and you’ll find your foot (and half of you) falling right through the floorboards. Damp and rot that have long since set in, and it will be dangerous to breathe in. But you’ll find that the house itself is pretty ordinary: this was once a family home. Just about the entirety of the house and its contents aren't salvageable, but you’ll be able to find out a little about who once lived here.

There are faded, half-destroyed photos that show a family of five: a father, mother, and three young children all under the age of ten. The father with warm, beaming smiles, the mother has kind eyes, the two oldest boys with toothy grins much like their father, the younger girl looks shy, wanting to hide against her mother. They look happy. Just a typical family. In a world where so many strange things are happening, it feels so strange to look upon these family photos and around this home to realise that they simply lost their home in a house fire.

But as you hold a family picture, or some half-destroyed trinket: a toy, a shoe, a book, a vase, you’ll find the item will suddenly catch alight, bursting into flames in your very hands. The flames do not burn you, and as you discard the item, it will fall to the floor as if nothing had happened.

Then, it comes to you. Here and there. Different sensations that stop and start suddenly: the house groans and creaks around you; the smell of smoke enters your nose; the sound of fire cracking and popping with a roar fills your ears; the sensation of heat against your skin; the clawing and suffocating feeling in your lungs that makes you cough and choke; the sounds of terrified shrieks of children echoing above you. Feelings flood you: fear, panic. When you next turn around, the entire house is aflame around you, and you can’t tell if this is real or if you’re reliving some terrifying memory.

You need to leave, get out of here. For some, it will be what comes naturally. You’ll have to fight through the flames and escape the house before it burns down completely around you. You’ll have to fight your way out, find an exit not already consumed by flames — through a window, perhaps. Crashing out of the house and into the snow, you’ll look back and see Milton House just as you entered it: nothing more than a half-burned ruin.

But for others, there will be another pull. You are drawn upstairs, to the screams of children. You need to get to them, to help them, save them. You will battle through the flames, heading towards the ruins of what was a child’s bedroom, or towards the bathroom. Inside either, you will find a figure cowering, engulfed wholly in flames: one in the bathtub or one in the closet. You recognise them as the two sons from the family pictures.

Mom. They will call you. Or Dad. They weep, terrified of the flames. I’m scared, I’m scared. I want the fire to go away. Help me. Stay here.

The tragedy of Milton House is before you. More than just a fire. What is more tragic than the death of a child? What silences voices? Breaks spirits? Leaves one helpless to act in the wake of such a passing?

There is something to be done here. You are not so powerless. Calm the child. Offer gentle assurances. They will get out. They are safe. You are there for them. You will stay. Embracing them will set you alight. Too hot. Too bright. It will hurt, but you won’t burn. But don’t let go; holding them will eventually calm them down enough for the flames to grow dim, to slowly ease their spirits to rest.

Soon enough, the flames will go out and the child will disappear, leaving you alone in a decaying, dilapidated room.

In the churchyard of Milton, there is a family grave by the name of Barker. Three lie within it: Thomas it reads, and his beloved sons, Patrick and Christopher.

THE VISITOR

WHEN: The month of January.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: erything absolutely worse.
THE VISITOR — CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural beings; dream-related horror/disturbing dreams; doppelgangers; themes of depression; themes of self-harm; themes of isolation; potential themes of suicide.

It seems the dream of the New Year and the Aurora dreams are not the only odd sleep-related instances occurring this month. You first notice that something is off when a strange dream pulls you from sleep. The dream may feel like any particular dream you have, whether it be a usual nightmare or strange concoction your brain has conjured up for you this night. Maybe it’s a dream you’ve had before, maybe it’s a new dream entirely. But no matter the dream, there is one thing that is odd about it. In tiny moments within the dream, you notice that there is something different, something that feels out of place. Something is there that shouldn’t be.

A figure, tall and silent, entirely made of shadow stands lurking in the background. It looks human, but there is not much more that you can really describe further. It is a sad, unsettling presence.

When you awaken, eyes bleary from sleep, and you look about the room, to the bottom of your bed, for a half-moment you see that figure standing there silently. That unsettling sadness permeates the room, and after a few seconds of blinking and sitting up — the figure disappears. Perhaps it was just some trick of the mind, some half-awake illusion.

But the next time you sleep, it appears again. The same figure, the same emotions surrounding it. And when you awaken, it stands at the bottom of your bed once more. Only this time, it lingers, and you find yourself staring down the figure before it disappears once more.

Over the next several days, the presence continues to linger more and more. It stands silently in the corner of the room of your home; it hovers by the window, staring out into the snow; it stands in the middle of the road as you go about your business. More and more, it is there. Always standing, always watching — silent and sad.

No one else seems to notice it, only you. And over time, the shape of it seems to change — the vague, undefined shape of it slowly shifts into something you recognise. The same hair, the same height, the same way it holds itself: it is exactly like you. A perfect doppelganger, a second shadow. And with it, it exudes an oppressive sadness, a particular kind of loneliness. It is suffocating, bleeding into you.

It makes you withdraw from the world around you, from the people around you. Perhaps you stop spending time with others, retreating into solitude. You hide from others, keep to yourself. You find yourself not sleeping at all or perhaps sleeping too much. Perhaps what little you already eat becomes nothing. The shadowy doppelganger draws ever closer to you, close enough to touch you - ever hovering at your shoulder. Its presence bores down on you, making you feel small and more and more alone even with its ‘company’. No one else can seem to see it but you, mentioning it to others will earn odd looks, or even concern. It seems you and your double are alone together.

Hopefully, those around you will notice the change in you. How you stopped reaching out, how you’ve stopped taking care of yourself. Hopefully they will see something isn’t right and reach out. You are doomed to the doppelganger's company otherwise.

However, those around you can push the shadowy double away, and can break its influence and hold over you. Genuine care and concern for you will have it shrinking back. Perhaps it is a kind word, perhaps it is the gentle but insisting coaxing to eat. Perhaps it is an attentive ear to listen to your thoughts, to how the presence has made you feel. Maybe it is even the simplest of touches, an embrace or the holding of a hand, the grip of a shoulder. Continued connection with you will slowly have the visitor’s power diminish.

And hopefully it is done before it is too late, or it may be all too easy to fade into the Long Dark.

FAQs

THE AURORA: NASCENCE

1. Aurora Feats are now unlocked! Please see the following page for more information. Aurora Feats are completely optional.

2. Interlopers will only receive ONE Aurora Event. The only time this is available is this month. After January, players will have to wait for the next Feat round for another chance at an Aurora Feat.

3. This Aurora will last a full three days. It will be a period of only night.

4. For more information on the ghostly loops seen during the Aurora, see this previous event, under 'The Aurora: Aftershocks' prompt.

5. For new players who would like a little extra context regarding the woman can look at December's Tales From The Northern Territories, under the 'New Happenings in December' section.

ADUST

1. Characters will not be physically burned in the fire, but only feel as if they have been. The effects of this illusion will last a short time after they're out the house before they will fade.

2. The only real injuries characters can sustain will be from fall damage, or if the floor gives way and their feet go through, etc. whilst in the house.

3. The children cannot leave the house. They will be too scared to leave. In addition, they are tethered to the house, given that this is where they died. Simply being calmed/comforted is the best way to help them and they will disappear after that.

THE VISITOR

1. An Interloper's Visitor can't be seen by anyone but the Interloper themselves.

2. The Visitor can be spoken to, but it will not speak back. It cannot be interacted with and is intangible.

PLOTTING POST

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Do you enjoy wine? Don't tell [ he taps the side of his nose, releasing her hand when she's on her feet ] but I happen to have found a bottle or two tucked away...

[ Dreadful, pedestrian swill, by the look of it, but there is what they say about beggars. It will serve to get a mortal drunk, and that's all most tend to care about.

Lestat leads the way out of the blind. Unlike before, he doesn't slow his pace to scout for signs of passing animals to point out to Chloe, but takes off directly into the trees with utmost confidence in his pathfinding skills. He couldn't get lost in this patch of the forest if he tried, at this point.

The poor woman he's taken under his wing is famished. He'd be a terrible mentor if he wasted any time in seeing her fed. ]

You're speaking my language. [Chloe grins, ignoring the fact that she's still kind of recovering from whatever had happened the other night after she’d chugged all of Wren’s awful pine crap. It has to be better than the bathtub gin she’d found in her root cellar.

She keeps up easily, energized by the fact that the risk she’d taken being alone with this guy is apparently paying off, but unfortunately in the excitement she's burning her power inadvertently and making everything worse.]

[ Lestat can't help but notice, a stab of envy pricking at his enthusiasm. He bargains with it by choosing to focus on the benefits: if she's this reckless with her power, she'll need him all the more, in early days. By the time she can fend for herself, he has no doubt he'll have won her allegiance more permanently.

And there's something nostalgic in her easy, thoughtless gamboling. The joys of coming newly into oneself, unfettered by past limitations. ]

Light steps. [ He says, indulgently. ] It'd be a waste to burn out such a bright candle as you all of an evening.

Sure thing, dad. [It's a little petulant but she does slow down a little, letting her boots sink into the snow.] It just feels so good, you know?

[ Lestat cuts a look Chloe's way at dad, glittering with amusement - but there's something else beneath it, a glancing touch of unreadable depth more genuine than any other expression he's shown since the deer-gnawed undergrowth. ]

I know.

[ He looks forward again, adjusting the strap of his rifle. He doesn't think that his words give away too much; he is unaware of the treachery of his eyes. ]

But you'll enjoy yourself more when you're well-fed.

[ Hunger will hopefully be the gravy for the meal he has planned. He's no particular expert of the culinary arts - but even a dull supper is made delicious by desire.

They're approaching the edge of the woods, and from there, not far to Lestat's humble domicile. His very first guest in his new abode. What a successful night it's turned out to be. ]

I'd be interested in seeing you demonstrate your new talent to the utmost afterwards. Who knows? Perhaps you will become a terror of the local rabbit population.

[There's something in that look that Chloe’s hunger doesn't allow her the presence of mind to really analyze, but she might think about this later when she's more curious about her “benefactor”.]

Perhaps I will. We’ll see, I guess.

[ Lestat chuckles, crossing over into the brief open stretch between the woods and his home. He picks up speed on clearer ground, lengthening his stride to a pace he now knows she can keep up with. ]

Think of all the fetching mittens and stoles you could make.

And there. That humble little dwelling is mine.

[ He points out the blue bungalow with its oddity of a porch as they approach it, although he doesn't circle around the front to show that particular architectural feature off. He leads her up the back stairs instead, unlocking the door before he swings it wide open.

The cozy kitchen interior is warm and lit with a faint reddish glow from the low-burning wood stove's thick and smoky glass window. Whoever lived here last hung up little sayings and portraits on the walls, along with a bright row of gleaming kitchen pots and pans. ]

May I take your coat?

[ He offers, genteelly. ]

['Bless this house', 'cherish each day', Chloe snickers, shrugging out of her jacket.]

Sure thing, grandma. Love what you've done with the place.

I thought it might be disrespectful to burn all of the previous resident's worldly treasures on my first month of occupancy.

[ Lestat is mildly stung, and the displeasure shows in the tightness of his smile, but it soon passes. He can see the humour in it.

He should burn them. He's simply been disinclined to make the effort. He takes Chloe's coat with a flourish and hangs it up on a hook next to his own by the door. ]

But as the most garish of these hangings says - 'good food, good meat, good God, let's eat'? [ With the rest of his winter wear shucked, Lestat starts lighting candles around the room, illuminating the small space. ] Would I tempt you with an hors d'œuvre of canned peaches? A main course of roasted rabbit, in a wine glaze? As for dessert - a surprise.

I don't know whether there's a respectful way to do this, but I get you. [No matter how you look at it they're just occupying dead people’s houses.

Chloe should probably be more concerned about a 'surprise' alone out here with someone she barely knows, but she's distracted.]

You have peaches?

[Normally she's not really one for canned fruit but here even that is a luxury.]

[ As easily pleased as he is offended, Lestat casts his eyes down in false modesty as he opens his cupboard and produces the canned good in question. He sets a floral-edged bowl next to it, and begins hunting for a can opener. ]

Tucked in the back of the pantry. I've been saving them for an occasion, and this -

[ He flourishes the can opener, smiling brightly. ]

- is an acquaintanceship worthy of celebration.

[ The showiness of his charm is part and parcel of it. In his extensive experience, people are flattered by overt courting. Everyone wants to be wanted. It's not quite a seduction, or at least not in the moment - but the same principles apply.

The can crunches satisfyingly under the opener. He remembers Louis showing him how it was done, when he was still only Louis' charmingly eccentric new European companion, too pampered to possibly know anything about the banalities of American kitchenware.

The peaches slide out, glossy with sugar-syrup, and Lestat fans them out with the back of a spoon before he presents them to Chloe with an obsequious, knowingly ridiculous little bow. ]

[It's easy flattery, but Chloe will take it. It's nice to have this kind of attention paid to her - before Milton, she’d been getting her shit kicked in pretty regularly by people who thought her bloodline made her worthless, and ever since it's all been kind of lurching from one crisis to the next.

She takes the bowl and doesn't bother concealing the eager hunger in her expression.]

You sure you don't want any?

[ The hunger is more pleasing than her gratitude, which is a thrill in itself. An echo of older days, he supposes. He always did enjoy being seen as generous.

Of course, it's also easy to wave off the temptation of joining her for the meal when it would be so much slimy muck on his tongue. He imparts grace to the flick of his wrist all the same, stepping away from the table to retrieve a floral pattern apron from its hook on the wall and slip it over his head. ]

I ate before I went out tonight. Please, enjoy yourself.

[ He begins assembling his paltry ingredients for the rest of his little impromptu dinner party, glancing at her every so often to partake in the voyeuristic pleasure of her minuscule feast. ]

So. While we are getting more acquainted - what else should I know about you, Chloe?

[ A simple question. It's only that it's one Lestat manages to slip a hint of intrigue into, as if inviting Chloe to share some perhaps scandalous detail. ]

[Chloe closes her eyes and makes an almost obscene sound at the taste of that first bite in her mouth. God, has she even eaten fruit since she got here? Probably not. It's kind of crazy how little deprivation it takes to make something you'd normally think was a bit gross so delicious.]

I'm from 2018, so this is the past for me. [She pauses to eat a little more.] It’s kind of weird 'cause you'd think freak electrical storms knocking out part of the power grid in Canada might have made the news. [Not to mention the mass death.] You think that means alternate timelines are real?

I think it must.

[ Lestat isn't familiar with that precise wording for the phenomenon at hand, but he has read about time travel in some of the less intellectually developed books he occasionally indulges in. As it's the only mechanism that makes sense to explain his dislocation in the mist of ages, he accepts it.

Of more pressing urgency is fiddling with the stove to set it up to cook properly. He's boiled water on it. This can't be too much more difficult. He manages not to sound distracted as he keeps talking, thanks to his natural deftness. ]

This is quite far in my future. I was last in the year 1940. How lucky I am to see how things turn out, hm? Even under these circumstances.

[ He's yet to be impressed by this vision of the waiting future. He can only hope this place isn't representative, and hope remains for the cities. ]

[1940. That does explain a few things, or at least it illuminates how unusual his behaviour towards her would be among his compatriots.

She watches him at the stove for a moment and resolves to really savour the rest of the fruit. Who knows how that rabbit is going to turn out?]

You're not seeing too much from here. Things are pretty different, though, with everyone carrying a phone in their pocket. Where are you from, back home?

France, originally, if that isn't obvious.

[ He's never entirely sure how much of his accent comes across to others with the peculiar reverse-curse of Babel that has this place in its grip. But even without it, he assumes his mannerisms are obvious enough to anyone with the slightest amount of cultured sensibility.

He sets the pan on the stove and pours a measure of oil into it, perhaps overgenerously. Surely, though, she can use the nutrition. ]

But I came to America some years ago. Took up residence in New Orleans. Have you ever been? You must, once we're liberated from this place. An utterly charming city.

And telephones in your pockets? The wires must be hopeless.

[ He's teasing, for the most part. Advancements in technology don't have the power to surprise him as much as they once did. Feigning the part of the rube is simply entertaining. ]

[Not everyone with a French name and accent is from France! Besides, Chloe - who despite her own accent doesn't often think of or describe herself as Australian - knows better than to make assumptions.]

Never been to the States at all, actually, but two of my friends live there. New Orleans. They keep trying to convince me to go there, too.

[She really should visit once they get out of here, but she’d been a bit reluctant to hang out with her ex and his wife while they play house.

Predictably, she is a bit charmed by the joke.] You're laughing but it can be pretty annoying to be constantly reachable.

I'd say I should look them up when I return, but, [ he shrugs one-shouldered, laying already mostly portioned chilled rabbit across a cutting board ] unless your friends are Methuselahs in their own right...

[ The old woman's old knife is sharp and heavy. It makes the work of dismantling the rest of the creature into cookable portions pleasingly tactile, the knock of metal onto wood at the heel of the blade a light percussive underline to their talk. ]

But I could tell you all the sights, so when you do go, you can impress them with your study of history. [ He laughs softly, shaking his head. ] As for the pocket-phone - why submit to carrying one around, then? How do you dodge unwelcome invitations?

Yeah. Not sure if they're your type of crowd, anyway. [The decor in this house is something that she’s seen in the background while Facetiming with Elena, so she can't really imagine this guy handling her boring nerd friends all that well.]

I wouldn't mind hearing about it, though. Then I can see how much it's all changed when I go.

[The number of people named some variation of DO NOT ANSWER in Chloe’s phone really is a sight to behold but how else is she supposed to remember?]

Usually I pretend it's broken. I used to break them a lot, but the one I have now is a good one.

No? [ He says, at the revelation Chloe's friends might not be his type, an evidently comic notion. ] I assure you, I am eminently personable.

[ As unlikely as it is he'll ever cross paths with Chloe's companions, New Orleans no longer being a city he ought to show his face in, he must object on principle to being unable to get along with anyone. He prides himself on his charm, after all. ]

And I imagine it is broken now, in a way. [ Pivoting back to the phone as he pivots back to the stove, adding the rabbit to the oil. The hiss is satisfying, the air starting to fill with the scent of cooking meat almost instantly. ] Or else you could telephone us up a prompt rescue.

[ Another flight of fancy. He's indulging in plenty of those tonight, spurred on by acting once more as the gracious host. It's been too long since he entertained, aside from that last disastrous engagement. ]

Then I could tour you around the French Quarter myself. Do you care much for cathedrals?

Oh, it's not you. I love them, but they've gotten pretty boring since they got married.

[Nate has a legal identity now and everything. They have a mortgage. They won't even do a dig without permits! What is the world coming to, huh?

The meat starts cooking and Chloe’s mouth immediately starts watering. All of this is going to take some getting used to.]

Yeah. It only turns on during auroras, no signal of course. It’d be great if I could just call in a helicopter.

[She smiles. The small talk is kind of fun after their crazy evening.]

I like architecture, but I'm not so into religion. Anglican boarding school.

[ Lestat makes a remarkable French sound at marriage, a high, disappointed slant of vowels without consonants that manages to convey condolences, pity, and mild distaste.

He starts peeling garlic, several wizened heads also scrounged up from the pantry. It's not as fresh and pungent as he'd like, but to go without any seasonings at all would be even more appalling a prospect than holy matrimony. ]

I'm not much for religion myself, [ he admits, breezily, with conspiratorial chumminess ] but, would you believe I was almost educated by monks? It's true - although my father forbid it, in the end. But I retained my fondness for the art. God has inspired man to such beautiful creations.

And to such depravity - but hardly a topic for the dinner table.

[ Even such a reduced one as that he can offer her. ]

Do you travel by helicopter often in the future? [ He asks, so smoothly it hardly might seem like a pivot at all. ] I've heard some people say that by the time we reach the twenty first millennium, we will all be free of the tyranny of gravity.

[It is absolutely a sad state of affairs! You don't expect someone you met in the middle of an active war zone to get boring so quickly. Good for her and all that, but ugh.]

Monks, really? I don't know whether that's even a thing anymore. My expertise is mostly in Asian art, but a few of my friends visited a cathedral in Scotland last year that had some really elaborate stonework. [They had been trying to kill one another at the time but who’s counting?] It blew up, though.

I'm not really a helicopter kind of girl. [The last helicopter she’d been in also blew up.] Military stuff, you know? One of my friends has this cute little seaplane we use sometimes.

My upbringing was somewhat provincial.

[ That's all he has to say on the subject of monks. He finds that a vague gesture at a rural childhood in the rolling hills of France is sufficiently mystifying to obscure more inquiries into the specifics. It's not as though monks have died out - although, perhaps, he ought to confirm that assumption holds into the future before he next shares that bit of trivia. ]

Certainly no seaplanes. Very little art, save the heirlooms not fit to be sold off. [ He scrapes the garlic into the pan and stirs the lot with a wooden spoon. ] So you are a photographer, a connoisseur of the arts, and a world traveller?

[ The wine has a cork, for which he has some thanks. The screw tops he's encountered on some bottles strike him as a barbaric subjection to modernity. He pops the seal and adds a generous, hissing splash to his ongoing concoction - then fills two stemmed glasses, which he picks up and brings with him to join her at the table. ]

You must find either find this a thrilling adventure, or interminably dull.

[ He sets her glass in front of her and smiles. ]

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cw: animal death (nonexplicit)

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