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Text | Call | Video | In-Person | Wildcard*
*Don't limit yourself, live your best life! Or unlife. As it be. The difference is mostly the breathing, you know? You don't have to smell really gross stuff as much anymore because you don't need to breathe in unless you talk. But then again some people can achieve a better sense of scent and then talking in smelly areas becomes really unpleasant and now if you don't think that's a problem then I don't know what your priorities are.
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And really, with all that he's seen so far? Max doesn't seem to be trouble at all, no more than any person in the know would be automatically. Complicating things, yes, but worth it.
It's that thought into which Max's last words intrude, and he blinks in surprise and then raises an eyebrow. "What is it?"
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"I know you need to take a lot more than I'm used to in order to be satisfied. Now, it should be a lot less of a problem. I won't even need to go looking for iron pills."
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"Good thinking," he says instead, and grins. "That will make this all a lot less complicated."
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"I'm glad you're pleased." He smiles, proud of himself. "That's what I thought too. It made sense to go ahead and ask. If I could do that back home, I would have already. Then I wouldn't have so much down-time."
Who needs self-care when you have magic?
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Because that made him wonder. "Your interactions with your old master were limited to feeding times?" That hadn't been the impression that he got earlier, but...
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"Oh, no. Not at all." He shakes his head. "I'm -was- practically his side-kick. He didn't travel without me. Didn't even like to sleep without me..."
Max decides maybe this is as good a time as any to explain just what life has been like so far.
"Let me explain. My usual routine most days is to get up around five a.m., do my fitness program, eat, then work around the house. Evenings are less structured. That's when I'd get to do my own thing more often... except on the days he's hungry. Or horny.
"If he feeds, then I have to stay in bed the rest of the day, and the day after sometimes too. That's what I mean by down-time."
Cumulative feedings, after all, means he's in an almost near constant state of mild anemia. He takes precautions with pills and strict diet plans (and the fitness regimen helps) but there's no getting around the fatigue that often follows the immediate aftermath.
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Though, there's something niggling that doesn't fit, and then he realises what it is. Max just said that Erik didn't like to sleep without him. Hyperbole? Probably? But an odd placement for such...
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Oh. Wait. Now he thinks he knows what the confusion is.
"Maybe I wasn't clear. He keeps a closer to human schedule. You know, because doing business with them requires keeping business hours during the day. I'm usually in bed by no later than nine P.m. on a normal week day, and he'll usually come join me around midnight or sometimes later. That's if he's going to sleep at all. Technically, he doesn't need to, but he says he likes to."
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That actually breaks Jackie's stride a bit. He'd known that vampires where Max is from are different from Kindred, but that... is seriously surprising.
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He'd be more careful with that admission in his own world, but it doesn't apply here. And if it did... well, Max would be the person he'd tell to watch over his sleep, because he's as good as blood-bound.
"The moment the sun is up, I sleep like the dead. Some vampires you could wake up and they would be semi-functional if groggy, but ...not me."
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"Sorry. I mean, that's pretty inconvenient." Not to mention how vulnarable it would make them.
"Did the fae make it different for you here?"
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And it does suck." He's not going to reprimand Max for that statement; it's true. "Particularly where I'm from - means that in the summer, you get only a handful of hours of activity each day.
Which is why my pack liked to only go home in the wintertime."
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"Pack?" That's a different word too. "Is that your family...or...your group? We'd call it a clan in my world."
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What is a clan where you're from?"
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"It's organized as Clans, Houses, and lines of succession. Where the Clan refers to all the vampires under a certain regional Jurisdiction. My ma- former master's region is a large swath of the Central Midwest from Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, all the way to the border of Chicago, Illinois. He is the Lord and arbiter of that territory. Within it, however, are different houses.
"Those, I suppose, could be considered more like nuclear families. But they can also be quite large like extended families. Each house has a head, and a line of succession that dictates a pecking order. It's all a lot more...political than anything. You can leave a house and join another as many times as you want. Some even choose not to join one at all.
"The closest thing to familial bonds I can think of is the relationship between Sire and Childe. A Sire is obligated to stay at their youngling's side and teach them for as long as it takes to make them independent."
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"Usually, a Clan where I'm from dictated by a common sire, waaaaay back." He makes a grand gesture, indicating a great passage of time. "Doesn't necessarily mean that anyone of that line is part of that Clan, but they usually are. You know - theory is great, but life is more complicated." And sometimes people don't manifest Clan markers.
He pauses, thinking. "You don't happen to know how old the oldest vampires in your world are?"
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In his world, the strength of a sire doesn't necessarily dictate how strong the vampire they turn will be. So, there was never any impetus to keep 'bloodlines' pure or any such ideas like that. Strength could be something built from the ground up. His master Erik is proof of that.
"How old?" Max thinks on that. "To be considered and Elder like Erik, you have to have ten centuries under your belt. There's a decent number of those. I've met them during business meetings. As for the oldest... the oldest vampire anyone has heard of is Mother.
"She is ancient, even by immortal standards. She was there and old already when humans were just beginning to develop. All vampires are descended from her and her thirteen children. They all have her blood in them.
"It was Mother who struck the Accord with humans, by giving them some of her own blood. Doing that meant giving them power over any vampire they wield that blood against. It was a scared bond of trust. IOPSA is the custodian of that trust between humans and vampires."
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"What was her reason for that?"
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"I think, maybe, It broke her heart to see her children falling to the beast like that. She wanted them to remember their humanity... I don't know. Whatever her reason, it worked. It's sometimes an uneasy peace, but it has held all this time." As for Mother, no one has seen her since.
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Where I'm from they were for the most part humans doing their thing, mistaking regular humans for people who were not and people who weren't regular humans for humans. And those who really weren't, Kindred and otherwise, trying to use their chaos for their advantage, of course."
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He shrugs. Alas, he is no scientist, only a vampire's butler.
"I think the bottom line here is that even if Lucas does know, he isn't going to be a problem. He's with IOPSA and IOPSA respects vampires' autonomy. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do everything I can to keep him from finding out. I respect your decision too."
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Not because he can't keep his mouth shut," but he wouldn't discount that; Lucas doesn't strike him as a person who won't discuss things with people close to him or chatter away when he gets nervous, "but because the more people know, the more likely it is that even more people hear." And he'd prefer to tell others on his own terms. If he does at all.
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"All the more reason for me to try to be a lookout for you, right?"
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As simple as that.
And with that, he feels, they're done here.
"I will see you around, then."
done!