The lavish Elysium, centrally located, is quiet tonight. Ghouls are ready to wait in attendance of any requests of course, but in terms of Kindred the presence is sparse, but for one: Faith. She stands, staring out the window and overlooking Chicago, contemplating the lit up city at night from beneath her hood. Her face is kept hard to spot, cloaked up in her hood. Deep in thought, a glass of something in her hand -- lacrima, by the look and smell of it, with a sprig of mint.
Measured, quiet footsteps, and a well-cut suit. The hallmarks of the Mekhet, the well-elevated and those who have tasted the fine dust of misery at some point - all others are born to the wealth and the prestige. Humming to himself, Ali has his head on a swivel, never looking at anyone for too long nor not enough - a professional socializer. Once he's at the bar, he has his glass filled and moves, heading this time to the window - always in motion. At arriving, he raises a glass of whiskey dusted with what looks like dried blood seems to be his drink of choice. "An enchanting view," he says, his smile kept in line, sipping as he views the skyline.
The Nosferatu woman in the hood keeps her gaze downcast, but when there's that newcomer coming towards her, it's met with the moment of tension as she senses the presence of another. Her hand on that glass gripping at it tightly, as she takes a moment to compose herself, before turning just slightly towards the Mekhet. "I've always thought so," Faith says in a soft voice. "There's something about cities at night, viewed from above."
"Which is how half of us see the world entire," Ali says with a soft smile, his eyes visible in the reflection on the glass, looking at Faith. "The other half, they spend it staring at their shoes, wondering and worrying, and don't know what they've lost." He then gives a soft tsk'ing sound, sipping from his glass. "My name is Ali, of Cairo. In nights long-gone, I was an Almoner for Cairo, and now.. I live in Chicago." Another soft chuckle.
"I do stare at my shoes a lot, I admit," Faith says in her soft voice, a hint of amusement lacing her tone there. She does keep her gaze downcast, hidden and away from view. Her hand lifts her glass to her lips, a small sip taken. "Ah, A Kindred of Quality?" She questions when the title of 'Almoner' is revealed. "Then without someone else to provide them, we simply must do our introductions ourselves," a grin might be spotted just briefly on her face, as a hand comes to rest upon her chest in reference to herself. "I am Madam Faith Wilson, Unconquered Haunt and Au Pair. It is my very great pleasure to meet you, Mister Almoner."
There's a soft bow, and Ali's eyes grow a little more focused. "A fellow traveler," he says, his tone emanating more respect than previously. "Mister Ali al-Rama Sahar, Almoner null of Cairo, Interpreter at large." He then glances to a nearby table before he gestures that direction. "I'd be honored to keep your company, and hear of your stories. Mine, they will be as numerous as grains of sand, and almost as dull." He then looks away, his cheeks flushing, a little of his charm flowing through him. "Come, I shall see to your glass being refilled."
Who would Faith be to not accept such an offer? So there's a flicker of a smile, and she's moving aside to see about getting that glass refilled. "Oh, I'd be delighted to hear your stories also, I am sure mine are hardly as interesting for someone like yourself." A pause, and she wonders, "I apologize, I am unfamiliar -- is it correct to address you as Mister al-Rama Sahar, or is Mister Sahar itself more appropriate?"
"Ali," he says quietly, then takes a seat, gesturing to a server before pointing to Faith's glass and then his necktie, indicating payment will be on his dime, not hers. Once he's seated, one knee crosses the other and he smiles at her. "We're being informal, as neither of us is doing some sort of formal function, I'd think. You aren't marshaling forces of neophytes into saving themselves from starvation or public idiocy, and I'm not quite feeling up to the cloak-and-dagger of my nominal role." He gives a mirthful laugh, then sighs. "As for stories, I'll tell a simple one." Then he holds up his right hand, gesturing to a star-like scar on the back of his wrist. "Service, sacrifice, surprise." He raises his eyebrows, biting the tip of his tongue, having a good time, apparently.
Sliding into her spot at the bar, she finishes off the remains of her glass, setting it aside and waiting for the next. "Oh no, I simply couldn't," she says with a brief laugh. "The moment may be an informal one, but still." One arm leans against the bar, taking up her new drink. "Service, sacrifice and surprise." She muses. "That sounds like a familiar kind of night."
Angling his head as he nods, Ali begins, first taking a deep sip of his glass, sighing with delight at it, then sets it to the side as he angles more to face Faith. "I, like many of us, spent a considerable amount of my breathing days in service to my beloved," he says, humming briefly, then glancing away before he continues. "She was my teacher, and in many ways, the family I never truly had. A street rat in Cairo, hardly an original story, and she saw something in me and saved me from myself." He then gives a soft chuckle. "Loyalty was absolute, long before I drank a drop offered by her. I grew up and strong, because I was eating well, learning fast and developing .. mmmm.. a diverse skill set?" He chuckles again. "In so doing, she captivated me as a person, having achieved so, so much, even when she breathed, and then.. to become so powerful, so quickly?" He sighs, stroking his chin softly. "Amazing. Then, we came here, and in so doing, her enemies, our enemies, really - they felt the weakness of the move." He looks back to Faith, then sighs again. "They came for us at dawn on the third day, and we were alone in the dark hold of the ship, moving across the Atlantic. While I was able to take down five, the sixth, he.."
Then he pauses. "He did the impossible and stole the face of God from me forever." He wipes a bloodied tear from his eye, then smiles, rallying a little more. "This story, it.. always has a price, and one I pay gladly for telling it." He smiles, then looks to his beverage. "By the time we made landfall in Connecticut, I'd been sleeping in her ashes for so long, it stained my skin for a year. He died somewhere around a year later, his heart just.. not quite up to the task of surviving under.. extreme conditions." Then he drains his glass. "The bullet which took her from me is still in my wrist. Not a metal, some sort of stone. It stays, as to remind me, often when it grows too hot or too damp, of her. The service, sacrifice.. and the surprise."
Faith grins a moment, settling in to listen to the story, spending much of it staring into her glass. Her expression falters after just a moment, the smile giving way to something more grave. She doesn't interrupt, she doesn't prod for questions, glancing up just briefly now and again, meeting Ali's gaze just briefly with her dead, corpse-like eyes that she mostly keeps hidden beneath that hood. "I am... sorry to hear that. I fear anything I might have to offer pales in comparison. I never had such a good relationship with my own Sire." A pause. "Or any relationship at all, truth be told. He was ... a strange man." She shakes her head.
"There's not been a single close of business, breathing or since, wherein I did not think, 'am I strange by design or circumstance?' before sleep overwhelmed me," Ali says with a mirthful smile. "We can dwell on our darknesses and let it define us, or we can embrace that we, all of us, have found some absurdity overwhelmed us at some point." Casually, he peels back his sleeve on his right arm, revealing a pair of dots in a sequence - 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2. "This, I received as a child, because my mother, much.. less of an advanced thinker than my beloved, she.. believed it meant 'S-O-S' in Morse code, and felt it would mean I was to be protected by some sort of radio-based gods." He chuckles. "Absurd, yes? Of course!" Another laugh. "Yet, she did it out of love. Does it taint her love, that it was expressed so absurdly? Not to my heart nor my mind, no." Then he looks to Faith. "So, tell me of your Sire and their absurdities. It is not shameful to say I once saw my own slip in donkey droppings while carrying a copy of the Rosetta Stone itself. Her laugh was louder and longer than mine." He grins.
"I suppose, we're all of us, a little strange. By design *and* circumstance, no less." Faith says with a sort of contemplative air about her, lost in thought for a moment as she shakes her head, glancing at the markings of the dots on his arm. "No, I wouldn't say it taints it, but it's not ... exactly the same. I never met my Sire until after he'd decided to make me what I am." She leans back, thumb playing over the rim of her glass. "I was in med school. Life was going all according to plan. Everything in order, everything in its place. He was a simple man, I think. When I woke up, he told me he needed a doctor. I *think* he was disappointed to learn that I wasn't actually a doctor, just a student. He didn't ... abandon me, he taught me enough to survive, obviously. But from then on, I always felt like I was an inconvenience. A responsibility he had created for himself that he regretted. He was distant, closed off, and offered very little help for me to get used to ... the things that come with being a Nosferatu."
He pauses on his way to flagging down a server and quirks his expressive eyebrows. "A medical student," he says, tapping his chin, then smiling at Faith. "I would qualify you as a prize above rubies, "Madam Faith, if I may be so bold with your titles." He clears his throat needlessly and continues. "A man with wisdom enough to seek out a mendicant, it is not the work of the short-sighted. While he may not have gotten a harried, oft-harassed student turned doctor, he received something much finer - someone who still loved the topics and studied even beyond the formal need of it." Then he angles his head. "Because you could no more put down the textbooks than I could, when I also studied medicine." He smiles broadly. "My area of expertise is cryobiology, and also with the study of cryonics." He pauses, raising his left hand, as if stave off a reply given automatically. "While it may be, by and large, considered quackery and a pseudoscience, for our kind, it is simply a deeper form of sleep. The breathing world needs myths - what I study is the promise of the science itself." Then he regards Faith with a new appraising look. "What was your chosen field of medicine, pray-tell?" Then he smiles and looks quite pleased.
"Well, so did he at first," Faith says with a shake of her head. "But after a time I simply ... left. And he didn't seem inclined to come after me. I met my mentor, who I would rate much higher than my Sire, who taught me of the Invictus and our ways, and sooner or later I ended up here in Chicago." There's a curve of her lips, the smile returning just briefly as she gives a bit of a laugh. "All knowledge is worth having, and a lot of science was once a pseudoscience, no? You are right, of course. I didn't put down the books. I may not have actually completed any official education really, but I'm a doctor." Her head dips in a nod, glancing back into her glass. "Trauma Surgery seems to be where I have ended up."
"Oh," Ali says, raising his eyebrows. "I'd say your formal education has been long-since exceeded." Then he flags a server, once more pointing for refills; his and hers alike, it seems. Once his glass is carried away, he looks to Faith anew. "I have heard rumors, speculation, really - that the Carthians in some cities, they have these mythic masked doctors, servants to their people, and hidden by name and face, working to provide them with medical care." He gives a half-hearted shrug. "While I must admit my knowledge is based entirely on speculation, I could not help yet consider that, if true, it would be an innovative solution to our people. A mobile, as-needed medical practice, formally accepted by the Priscus." Angling his head, he regards Faith with a smile. "I have a facility, Madam Faith. I would be honored if, after touring it, you gave me your impression of its potential. While I am a specialist, what I am not is a surgeon of quality. If anything, I'd be closer to a meat-cutter than even the barest of graduates."
"Oh?" Faith replies, glancing up again. "I have not heard of these Carthians. That would be interesting, as it is somewhat similar to what I do I suppose. Though, never a servant. People come to me when they need urgent medical attention and no questions asked. These kinds of things come with a notable cost, of course." She grins a little, echoing his shrug. "Of course, Mister Ali, I would be delighted, dare I say even eager, to see your facility some night. We all have our specialties, hmm? Why the interest in cryonics? I haven't really considered the applications for Kindred."
Looking quite pleased, Ali gestures politely to the incoming server, accepting his refilled beverage and sipping from it before sighing with a smile. "If ever you find yourself in Uptown, adjacent to the Graceland Cemetery, mine is the three-story office block." Then he opens his jacket and extracts a business card, laying it on the table between them. "My card." The logo is of infinity symbol against a starry field of night sky, reading Eternity, Inc. "The focus is on, according to our sales force, extension of human consciousness." There's a brief pause. "And, well, I have no proof we can accomplish this, although the monthly checks are certainly appreciated from the assorted surviving family members and estates." He sips his drink then licks his lips clear. "We also do extensive research into suspension in cryogenic states, both our kind and the breathing world, and study the results. Myself, I believe I have entered a state of full and total awareness at least six times through this method." He smiles. "As for the origin: my childhood hideout, such as it was, was a freezer for a fast food company. It, of course, was abandoned, although the power was never cut off to the freezer itself, which meant.. I had safety, and a place to keep myself to myself, if I could endure the cold." He chuckles.
Another drink then, Faith receives hers with barely a glance at the ghoul server, taking a sip and spending a moment to savor it. Her other hand reaches for the card, glancing at it and nodding. "Uptown," she echoes in thought, giving a brief chuckle as he explains a bit further. "Fascinating. A childhood memory that defines so much of your existence so much later on -- I can relate to that. I was ... always going to be a doctor, you know. My parents decided. But it's not one of those stories where the kid rebelled against that kind of thing, I had a passion for it too." She shakes her head, her hand lifting in a dismissive gesture as if to brush away the thought. "What do you mean by complete and total awareness?"
"I saw the power in a contrast," Ali says, sipping more of his drink before it is set aside. Idly, he rubs his teeth with a handkerchief, leaving it with reddish-rusty stains, the blue fabric ruined. As he tucks it away, he continues. "Secrecy and safety in the cold dark, and my existence was in the hot, unbearable sunlight." A soft chuckle ensues. "So, 'complete and total awareness'." Then he leans in subtly. "When I was first immersed in the customized fluids of our scientific endeavor, I went into a torpid state and time slowed considerably." He nods softly, his voice growing faint. "As I roused, once the timer had reached three days, I emerged with a new, strong sense of time's passage, and a growing degree of notification for my environs. The tiny imperfections stood out to me, clear as ever, and I could almost smell the subtle differences in color palettes as applied to cloth and paper." He smiles broadly. "Those details felt important, and as such, I studied them, one and all, and found patterns which directed my thinking for weeks, even months. Revelations ensued, although not of a religious nature - strictly scientific." He then gives a sagely nod.
Faith can't help it. She looks dubious. She distracts herself from this obviousness by taking a mouthful from her drink, once more savouring that taste as she contemplates her response. "I've never entered torpor, myself," she admits after a moment, her voice soft. "So I have no idea what is normal or not after waking. I can only imagine ... hunger. Maybe not after a simple three days." She pauses awkwardly once more, shifting slightly. "What newfound scientific revelations do you think you found in this sense of heightened awareness? How different is it from the gifts of the blood that can be used to sharpen our senses and see what is not meant to be seen?"
Raising his eyebrows, Ali shakes his head. "No, no," he begins, "Not 'torpor', a 'torpid state'." He smiles broadly. "A minor correction, as.. no, it is quite unlike torpor itself. That, it's.. a dream-like state. A murky cloud through which one perceives tiny snippets, not quite to full awareness, then.. a glaring truth revealing itself." He shakes his head. "So it was explained to me by my beloved, at least." Then he smiles more. "This .. torpid state, it was more like oversleeping, then becoming deeply stimulated chemically. A jolt to the system, followed by frantic knowledge. The brain, I believe, becomes starved of input, being numbed and reduced in incoming data, and then.. it has avenues open, simultaneously, it was so readily able to consume." He chuckles. "Although, yes, I will admit, upon waking, I had.. well, my hungers, plural, to contend with before I could function."
There's a sort of 'ah' sound from Faith, and she nods in further understanding. "Oh, I see. My mistake, that makes, more sense. It's like the reports on sensory deprivation? Three days of it though, that is a long time to go without any awareness of ... well, anything." A pause. "How long did you state of heightened awareness last, do you think? Given you said you have done this multiple times, you must think it worth it, I assume."
"The first three trips, in total," Ali says, tapping his chin thoughtfully, "Those took place within a six years span. Each would 'last', inasmuch as a state of awareness can be quantified as a measured length of time.." He chuckles, sighing with a smile. "..about two or three weeks, give or take a few days. The highlights of each trip, those endured for, hmmm, I'd say almost ten times as long, all things considered." He gives a somewhat-maybe-sort-of gesture with his hand. "Since leaving Cairo, I've only indulged twice, both times in Germany, my previous port of call before Chicago." He looks up, as if calculating further, then nods with finality. "The two trips which followed, I'd say it was about the same, except the most recent, it.. well, coincided with some unfortunate news, which derailed my thinking, so the sample would be ... tarnished?" To this, he shrugs.
Faith tips her glass back, emptying it and setting it aside, taking the sprig of mint and just holding onto it as something to idly fidget with. "I see. I wasn't expecting weeks, I have to admit. More like ... hours, perhaps. I understand these kinds of things are hard to measure, but if you want to keep experimenting I guess you have to find a way, hmm?" She gestures with the mint, "What inspired you to really try this in the first place though? Like, to actually do it, I mean?"
There's a soft chuckle as Ali shakes his head, then he sighs, looking up at Faith with a smile. "This, well, may somewhat tarnish your thoughts of me," he says, then he draws a deep breath, laughing a little more, just barely audible yet with enthusiasm. "It was October 7th, 1993, a Friday." He seems able to recall the details quite easily. "My beloved and I were visiting friends and colleagues in Utah, Provo?" He pauses, then continues, seeing if the city name is engaged upon, smiling a little less. "As I was, in my youth, a fan of the cinema, I asked if she would enjoy a trip to the theater, and she agreed, because.. well, she was an agreeable woman, of course and I was quite persuasive." He smirks proudly. "The arthouse was, as it turns out, totally sold out, and my mood was quite sour, as I'd been looking forward to the published ad's promise of a viewing for 'The Age of Innocence', by Scorsese." He pauses again. "I adore his body work." Then he continues. "So, my beloved, she purchased us tickets to the nearest cinema as I found us dates-slash-snacks, and upon my return, having waxed poetic about finding suitable candidates, and a matched pair, no less!" He chuckles, shaking his head with a delighted sigh. "There, standing in the neon light, was my beloved, holding up.. two tickets to 'Demolition Man'." He exhales, then shrugs. "After dismissing our 'dates', I accompanied her and she asked, when it was done, quite a few questions.. and then if I could do the things science said was possible in the movie." He then gives another shrug. "The rest, well.. was answering, 'mostly' to the question."
She echoes that chuckle, a shake of her hooded head given. "I am sure that my thoughts of you will remain as they are," Faith offers with a a curve of a smile flickering onto her lips once more, there and gone again as she listens once more. She does look up, too, brows lifting up, and then can't help but laugh just a small bit. "I know that film. Though I don't think, Mister Ali, that I've ever heard of a Kindred being so inspired by it before." A grin, and she sets her sprig of mint back into the empty glass. "But why not. There's worse things for us to be inspired by, I'm sure. And have you had any success with actual people?"
"Some!" Ali says, sounding quite encouraged. "When someone's body is donated to us, it's .. well, in a legal sense, quite dead, and the brain activity will be minimal." He then gives a conspiratorial smirk before continuing. "However, those are the large-payment donors. For the, shall we say, less-than-savory, for whom our services are offered at a steep discount, sometimes the participants aren't quite so willing yet we accept them with the same enthusiasm." He then gives a small shrug. "With some of those, we've found that a living person, once flushed with our customized coolant, maintains a steady output of brain activity for sixteen to seventeen weeks." There's a pause. "Pursuant to our investigations into those who have survived near-death experiences, time would have been considerably slowed, and.. presumably, they would have truncated sensations." Another pause follows. "Well, I'd hope, at least."
Faith nods along with the explanation, tilting her head at that conspiratorial smirk. She seems to have no issue with the implications that might be there. "But what does brain activity really mean, in this instance? I'd expect that they have no real sensations too. I don't know about these particulars of course, but," she gestures with a wave of her hand, "I'm not really sure what it tells us, actually."
There's a pause before Ali speaks next, his expression vaguely guilt-ridden. "Welllll," he says, drawing out the last letter in a drawl before continuing, "Judging from the data acquired during the removal of their limbs, I'd say the brainwaves were, as a rule, almost identical to 'vibrant degrees of agony', which.. isn't necessarily all a bad thing?" He looks a little less than convinced himself, yet rallies and carries on speaking. "It was the general conclusion we reached, and.. we have yet to repeat this process since determining that factor as a possibility. I mean, that degree of continued cruelty, it feels.. unjust." He gives a weak, somewhat paltry smile.
Faith's attention lifts from her glass then, looking up at Ali once more, tilting her head towards him. "Fascinating. I wonder if they were truly aware of the pain, or just ... natural living processes reacting to the stimulus?" Truly, she doesn't seem at all concerned about the ... suffering, or morale consequences of such a thing. "It seems unlikely, after all, that they'd truly be in pain. But I understand wanting to conduct more ... research, before going any further. Still." She nods. "It's interesting."
"There's a small body of work," Ali says, "Which covers this area of focus, save that it is, unfortunately, tied to despotic regimes in both Germany and Japan." To this, he gives a shrug. "Morality, it.. can be a stumbling block to progress, and once I have approval by the Prince, I plan to reopen the venue of thought." There's a pause. "And, of course, I'd be happy to extend an invitation to you to bear witness to the event, Madam Faith. I'd be much interested in your take on the data as it is revealed." He gestures briefly between them. "Not to put too fine a point on it, yet.. are you, by chance, already.. spoken for, as it were, vis-a-vis having formed a social compact?" He makes an oblique reference to the concept of a 'coterie', and his eyes look optimistic. "A fellow traveler, and scientific mind, it's.. a rare gem to find in the field, and with someone who has such a beautiful mind to share." He sighs, looking quite pleased.
"It can be, but it's a stumbling block that can be overcome at the very least. Should you get approval, I'd be honoured to be a part of the process at least once. You've piqued my curiosity, and that was most unexpected tonight. She nods slowly, considering the possibilities, before shaking her head. "No, I've made no such connections in this city as of yet. There are many people to meet of course, for I have introduced myself to so few." Her head dips low, "Ah, but you're too kind, Mister Ali."
There's a quirking of Ali's eyebrows as he speaks. "That's definitely not the first conclusion which I'd reached," he says, sounding baffled, then gesturing in the gap between the two of them, flicking his fingers slowly back and forth as he speaks. "Between you and I, it was my honest impression you were, as it would be, 'spoken for' by at least two groups, if not three. Your mind, curiosity and willingness to breach the common ethical boundaries in pursuit of scientific truths, it's.. a refreshing take, and it's.. downright appalling, really, that you've been missed." He raises his glass to Faith as if toasting her. "But, of course, any scientific endeavor, it does not run on enthusiasm alone - due diligence is called for, and to that end, I open the books on me entirely, should you wish to research me and my history with the chosen few." He beams with pride. "A member of low status, yet high loyalty. Modest income doesn't hurt, either." He grins, chuckling impishly.
"People are not always so kind and welcoming to one of the Nosferatu as you are, Mister Ali," Faith says with a shake of her head. "But truly, the fault, if there is any fault, lies with me. I have spent far too long in my own company rather than coming out to meet the Kindred of Chicago. It was a ... strange thing, just recently, when I realized just how much time I'd kept to myself. So if I've been missed, there's none to blame but me." Her hands clasp together, a small smile spotted on her lips. "I will definitely consider it, though now I'm curious about who you think would have attempted to snap up my loyalty."
There's only a brief pause before Ali replies. "The Carthians," he says simply, "To name one entire bandwidth of opportunists. While they have some faults I'll never quite agree with, their ecumenical and egalitarian approaches to recruitment are.. well, noble, really." He then sips more of his drink, closing his eyes before hissing his pleasure and returning to making that eye contact with Faith. "After that, Ordo Dracul, given it is rife with scientifically-minded opportunists, good and bad faith intended to the phrase, and that's not to discount our own people." He smirks a little. "I'm feeling that a few of your people, should they see the draw of such a thing, could find a happy home with our covenant and enjoy the good life of equality among their peers." A pause ensues. "Not, of course, complete and total equality. Leadership and responsibility are due their rewards, and stations are a privilege, if not an honor to be proud of, no?" He quirks his brow, looking to Faith again.
"Oh." Faith says with a shrug of her shoulders, leaning back as she glances away for just a moment. "I have not ... considered the Carthian Movement in any great deal. I've learned some; to be an Au Pair, I feel that I need to offer those that I am teaching a true representation of our fellows in all the covenants, and I try to be unbiased, but no. I enjoy the structure, and the discipline of the Invictus. And I admit, I enjoy the etiquette with a strange passion. Some find it tiresome, I find it thrilling." She glances back then, a crooked smile on her lips. "As for the Ordo Dracul, I don't know. I'm not as ... occult minded as most of them seem to be in my experience. I have a passion for medicine, and its applications for both the humans and for us, though my own talents have little to offer a Kindred." She spreads her hands, "So here I am, Unconquered, and you are correct, we are not all in total equality. Pretending otherwise is a self deception I can't really stand for."
"Then you are," Ali says with a proud smile, "Also a fellow traveler." Casually, he gestures to the skyline they'd both been observing at the start of their shared time. "Outside of these walls, we are.. unnoticed. The breathing world doesn't know we keep in check foulnesses they can not face nor name, and we do so in glad stances." He chuckles, shaking his head. "We are the thin red line and it is thankless work, because.. it can't be acknowledged. We can marshal forces they can't envision to perform tasks beyond their reckoning, and all in the name of progress, filtered through the lens of our people's power structure, long may it reign." He finishes his glass, standing up, looking to Faith with a happy gleam in his eyes. "Madam Faith Wilson, Unconquered Haunt and Au Pair, it has been my sublime pleasure to make your acquaintance. Consider myself much indebted for a lively, engaging discourse on our mentors and passions, of science and medicine, and of the future." He pauses. "I would much appreciate you calling me 'Ali', if for no finer reason than I feel you deserve the privilege. I can grant nothing from my station, though I can give you that, and I do so gladly."
"We keep the world turning, indeed," Faith acknowledges with a grin, tilting her head ever so slightly. There is a slight wave of her hand, a gesture of dismissal, "You owe me no debts, Mister Ali al-Rama Sahar. The fine, light company of another Kindred of Quality in return is more than sufficient a way to spend some hours, no? Then we are even." Her head then dips again, gaze downcast, the shadows playing about her face. "Forgive me, but I cannot simply ignore the ways and rules of our social structures. I fear that to throw them aside would throw away a lot of what makes me who I am, and then what am I?" She shrugs, shaking her head.
Raising his eyebrows, Ali regards Faith with a newfound focus. "You would deny a gift, then?" he says, his lips becoming a thin line. "Perhaps, then, I misunderstood - it was not an invitation given lightly, nor to induce anarchy in the masses." He shakes his head, his tone a touch bitter. "To have such a low degree of prestation thrown back at me, I must admit, I've not felt that sort of chill since Cairo in my youth, clutching a stack of frozen burger patties in a dark, dank hole in the corporate world." He bows, albeit stiffly, and looks into her eyes. "If your sense of self is so wounded by my gift, I shall make a note of such a thing. My own sense of identity, it is tied to my critical thinking and compassion for our culture - wherein gifts are accepted in the spirit offered." He then turns on a heel, departing, head held high, his steps locked in a metronomic pattern, a cadence mirroring his entrance. "Good eve."
She looks up then, her lips matching that thin line, she meets that gaze, her eyes cold and dead. They're milky white, the eyes of a corpse that stare back at Ali, the Nosferatu curse writ there in her gaze. "You call such an edged invitation a gift? Requesting such an intimate form of address, when only this night have we just met? That is not a gift, Mister Ali, not by my reckoning." The discomfort about her is obvious, and she breaks the gaze away, glancing into her glass, reaching for the sprig of mint once more, staring at it as he turns to depart. "I do hope your evening is pleasant, however."
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