Blenheim Palace

“Call it… making amends,”  she smiles through gritted teeth.

"I can teach you mentis imperium..." Francis tells Aubrey, "if you can prove your worth. Help Rae uncover why the Strix have come to Oxford and I will show you how to claim the control that you crave."

“Sure,” she chuckles, “I’m keen to know like, what the fuck is going on too. But that’s a favor for a favor, not making amends. At the least… ” she gestures about, “…a first teensy little lesson? Like a wine tasting or whatever, you know?”

"A lesson?" Francis echoes with a shark-like grin. "Well I'm always keen to impart one of those. Tell me, girl, when was your last kill?"

Aubrey frowns, her brow furrowing at his words.  "What does that have to do with, like, ' mentos imperium'  or whatever?"

" Everything ," Francis replies, circling Aubrey with his hands clasped behind his back. "We are a class apart from the mortal chattel. The power to command and rule is in our very blood."

“Well duh, ” Aubrey scoffs with a flick of her hair, “that goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

"One would think so, but you must believe it - live it - if you would exercise it. So, I ask you again, when was your last kill?"

Aubrey feels her chest tighten as she feels his gaze upon her, probing and pushing and prying into her. She pauses before speaking, choosing her next words carefully. “Is that your only definition of power then? Killing? Seems a bit limited to me, but I am daeva , ”  She shrugs as nonchalantly as she can. “Killing is a last resort when everyone exists to serve, no? Like, why kill when I can still like, wring some use out of a servant?”  She lifts her head in his direction and stretches a polite, tight smile across her face, but her eyes close until she looks away once more.  “So no, I haven’t ever needed to yet. Does that disappoint you?”

"You are not my childe to be disappointed in. Your actions, or lack thereof, do not reflect upon me," France reminds Aubrey. "You may be Daeva, but you claim that you wish to wield power as the Ventrue do. That begins with thinking as they do. Thralls are tools, to be used and discarded when no longer useful. At the end, all they have left to give us is their blood."

“Sure, but you still haven’t said what this has to do with actually learning to dominate.”  She twists a finger through her hair, starting to get a tad apprehensive as to where this whole point was heading… or more accurately, if it was indeed heading exactly where she thought.

As Olivia sits curled up and shivering beside her, Rae takes off her light jacket and drapes it around the woman's shoulders. As the conversation between Aubrey and Francis grows more tense, she chimes in. "Just for the record, Francis,  I'd like to say that I'm not particularly fond of the  Daeva-present company excluded, of course. But I quite  honestly find the Ventrue repulsive. Their arrogant and  vindictive natures, alongside their preoccupation with  power over all things leaves them much smaller than  any Kindred should be, in my opinion."

"Letting such judgements limit your perspective inhibits your ability to realise your potential, Raziel," Francis chides. "It has everything to with it. Learning another clan's disciplines is impossible without immersing yourself in their philosophy. To dominate, you must see the world as a Ventrue does."

Aubrey looks to the thralls as Rae drapes a jacket across one. ”You want me to kill to prove this, is that it? Is that what you’re being all coy about?”

"I don't want anything from you at all, young one," Francis counters. "The question is what you want from your Requiem."

“I know what I want,”  she intones, “and I know I’ll let nothing keep me from it. If killing a single mortal whoever-the-fuck gets me closer then, like, fine. I don’t believe that’s really needed, but like, obviously  it’s what you’re saying I for-some-reason have  to do, hmm?” Perhaps it was the toll of the evening, perhaps the lingering hate and fear of him in particular swirling like a vile cocktail of feeling within her blood, or perhaps the reality of the masquerade getting to her, but an undeniable bloodthirst was pulsing through her veins, rising with each second. Her beast was awake, and it was hungry.

"Then show me," Francis tells Aubrey, reclining on one of the plush leather chairs. "Reach out and take it."

Aubrey frowns. This wasn't what she'd anticipated, not even slightly, and yet she knew before he even spoke what she wanted to do. Or at least, what she would  do. Somewhere — deep within her now — a girl with eyes as wide as the world screamed reason into a void of apathy, the piercing cry lost across an ocean's divide of time. The night's events had taken their toll, and with each passing moment Aubrey could feel her humanity, or whatever tepid tether of sinew remained to connect to it, split further her. She hadn't realized it earlier, when she broke Francis' control, but a mistake had been made then. On her way to get away from his presence in her mind, she'd run through a door that she'd failed to fully close, and now her beast was free. "That'd be... a waste," she intones flatly, the words no more believable to the rest of the room than they were to her. Even as she speaks her eyes are landing on the second of the two thralls — the one Rae hadn't yet fed on. "...I'm... I'm not even that hungry..." A mumbling of words lost in the space between each footstep, as something or someone within her grows louder and louder in favor of what she was about to do. He is mortal. Flesh and meat and blood. You don't even know him.  The voice coils around her spine as it rises. What worth is the life of a servant to that of a ruler. One as majestic as you no less. You see it, don't you? The power. The control. It's there, waiting to be tapped and wrapped in a delectable suit of feeble flesh. You deserve the power he brings, don't you?  Don't you? Don't you. As she walks, turned from Francis, her face is plain for Raziel to see as she clenches her jaw, her fists balled up and white. She locks eyes with the man, and while the intent is clear, he finds he can scarcely move. Every bit of her willpower lashes out across the room towards him, attempting to wrap like tendrils around his limbs and mind until no thoughts remain but to acquiesce to her; to allow her to completely subdue... control...  Dominate. "I... deserve... this." Even coming up shorter than him, she towers over him in presence. Beat. "You know who I am." It's less a question than an imperative. He nods.  "You would do anything to please me." That young girl fades further into the recesses of her mind, her shadow twisting and growing larger with each second; a massive snarl of monstrous fangs and claws. A true beast. The thrall only nods once more. "So give yourself to me." The moments that follow disperse in a splash of crimson mist, blood flowing quickly from a stream into a raging river. The point of fullness approaches for a moment and passes in another, and still she drinks, engorged on a bestial hunger that consumes more than just the man in her grip. When it's done, she holds the back of the neck, feeling the limp weight of the corpse hang in her hands... and then the beast recedes, sated, and her throat nearly swells shut as she meets his vacant gaze. The body drops at the same time her stomach does, and at once she is nauseas, but she forces the feeling down. Turning with a tremble, she swallows and raises her own gaze up to meet Francis' for the first time since they left Brasenose. "...Satisfied?"

Rae lightly places an arm across Olivia, the intent having been clear in Aubrey's eyes and movements. As she cows the man and tears into him, Rae feels culpable in witnessing the act. The taking of a life in the pursuit of greater power. To watch that life leave a body and think only of what you gain from it. From what she'd seen of Aubrey, it wasn't out of the question for her to do this. But to take to it so quickly and with such cold indifference was unsettling, to say the least. And the act had taken a visible toll on the Daeva. As the body thuds to the ground and Aubrey surveys what she's done, Rae watches her skin becomes ashen and dry, her eyes becoming dark and sunken as they lose some intrinsic shine. In all her time with Kindred, rarely had she seen one look so deathly who was not an Elder.  And Rae feels a subtle sadness for the Daeva. For all Kindred. Turning to Olivia, she whispers in her ear. "You won't be hurt."

"That remains to be seen," France tells Aubrey with a cold smile, before turning his attention to Rae. "Don't make promises that you can't keep."

Francis's cool affect in the face of what Aubrey had just done reminds Rae of the immense danger that the Elder poses, and that he is not to be considered an ally. She sits up straight and regards Aubrey with worry before looking to Francis. "Then please allow me to keep it. If you would not object, please give her to me. I have no ghouls, though I had planned on making one soon. And if I am to move with precision in this dangerous time, I will need other support."

Aubrey barely registers Rae's look, her focus squarely on Francis still as he blithely shrugs off what she'd just done. "That remains to be seen..." Her eyes practically threaten to roll out of her skull, but she holds back. "I "immersed myself" in the philosophy of the Ventrue or whatever," she says folding her arms over her chest, an act done both out of indignation as well as faint hope that doing so would keep them from trembling any further. "So teach me. You want to 'see it'? Show me how."

Francis nods to Aubrey. "You did. You've taken your first step into a darker world. The rest will come with time." Then he turns has attention back to Rae. "A ghoul is an investment. Of blood. Of time and energy. Such an investment should have its dividends. Do not be so careless in your choice of follower. You may take the girl if you wish - I have many more - but such sentiment has been the undoing of more than a few kindred. When you choose a ghoul, I would hope that you select a mortal with true potential."

Rae contemplates the words of the Elder, looking to Olivia then back to him.  "The one I've found was familiar to me from our very first meeting, she would make an excellent Mekhet someday. I'll be able to make her a ghoul the next time that I see her, and I should probably text her, now that I think about it."  Her tone becomes more somber, the pitch of her voice dropping slightly. "As for potential, how does one measure it? Can you tell me about Olivia? I don't think she's in a place to talk about it herself."  Rae takes out her phone, inputting the password without breaking eye contact from Francis. "And as for sentiment, I shall hold onto it for as long as inhumanly possible. Lest all the world become just another body to bleed. " She raises her eyebrows with a dry smile to complement her macabre remark.  She then looks down to type a quick message to Lyra.  Good evening, darling :). I hope that you've been having a lovely night, because I'd like to make it even better. I have a surprise for you <3.

Aubrey scowls as the man brushes her off, his words feeling as empty as the fresh corpse at her feet. “Hold up,”  she raises a finger,  “I did not just do that to be like, strung along. You said you’d impart a lesson, and you owe me amends as is. I want actual practice. Like Raziel received.” Rae meanwhile is white-knighting for the mortal at her feet. As talk of ghouls comes up, she can’t help but hear her own sire’s words echo in her mind, and her own similar warnings on the matter. “Do you actually care about that girl Rae or do you just like, not know what making her a ghoul really means?”

Putting her phone away, her tone lightens again as she speaks to Aubrey.  "Well, not this particular girl-sorry, love," She gives a quick aside to Olivia. "-but I've had her released from the Domination because of my own protests, and now feel a charge in her well-being. I don't know if she would make a good ghoul, that remains to be seen. The person I have identified will make a lovely ghoul." Rae is once again offput by Aubrey's now corpse-like appearance, and she smiles at her. "But I hear your concern and it is appreciated, Bri. And before we write me off as a bleeding heart, I would like to remind you both that I accidentally killed a man, threw his body into a bush and mutilated it to cover my tracks, then slept like a born-again Christian."

Francis chuckles at Rae's humour. "Every regnant will have a slightly different interpretation of that nebulous quality, my childe. However, it sounds like you've already found your own answer. Return to your prospect and make her own. You have no need of Olivia."

Rae nods in relaxed assent. "Alright, I'll do so tonight if she's available. On what schedule will we begin the combat training?"

"On one that starts after I've had a first try at 'mentis imperium'," Aubrey cuts in. "But since that's right now it should be no issue, yes?" She cocks a brow in Francis' direction, her previous remarks still hanging in the air unanswered. It was an obviously risky game to play with an elder, but she was far from about to let him talk her into murder and then wave her off forever emptyhanded.

Francis crosses to Aubrey and reaches out, cold, pale fingers pushing a blonde lock of hair back out of her face. "The more you tighten your grip, darling, the more power will slip through your fingers."

Aubrey pulls away from his hand but stares at him unblinking, though she can only try and fail to stifle a laugh. “Wow, how like, appropriately dumb of a thing to say from someone doing just that.” Crossing her arms she digs in further. “Why won’t you teach me now? You said you would. And you like, clearly  covet power. You have a good bit but you want more. I mean it’s kinda stating the obvious? What with… you know…” She gestures to his outfit and all about his little batcave in the heart of a grandiose mansion, and to Rae herself. “Yet you want more. And that’s super cool! Me too! I don’t have a lot but I do have some  though; some that could benefit you?  Like you can dismiss the Circle all you want but that’s just because they have no real motive to hunt and skin you yet. I would know, they dismissed you as such just a day ago, and only sent one nerdy little Professor out to confront you,” she smiles. “But you did  just attack them so who knows where that stands now?  Of course if Strix are about they could be motivated to do more  for you instead.” “It’s a uhh what’s the phrase, ‘help me help you’ kinda sitch, yeah?”

Francis tuts and shakes his head, strolling back over towards Rae. "Your friend has much to learn if she wants to succeed in kindred society," he notes. Then, with the unnatural speed of celerity, he plucks an ornate black crossbow from the weapon rack besides them and shoots Aubrey in the chest. The stake punches through her clothes into the girl's heart and the rigor mortis of torpor immediately seizes her.

Seconds ticked by like minutes as Rae sat frozen on the couch after Aubrey told off Francis in her trademark flippant manner. Unsure of just how far the Elder could be pushed before he put his foot down, she waited for his reaction.  And, lo and behold, he demonstrates his cool cruelty, sending a stake through Aubrey's heart and paralyzing her. Remaining as still as possible on the couch, Rae speaks up. "Francis, please. I beg for your patience. Both her and I are still finding our footing in this dark, dangerous world, and her arrogance seems to be the plight of all Daeva. I'm certain that she will conquer it in time and display the proper respect and reverence."

"Oh, she will," Francis assures Rae as Aubrey's stiff corpse topples to the floor with a low thud . "I will see to that. In truth, you have presented me with quite a gift, Raziel. Your acquaintance showed remarkable strength of will when we first met. I look forward to exploring its limits." "James," he adds, addressing the manservant now for the first time. "Take her away and chain her up. I'll see to her later." James strides over to Aubrey, bends to grab her ankles and begins to drag her body out of the room and away.

A terrible conflict rages in Rae's mind, for this man was a monster that she must heed if she wanted any hope of fighting the Strix. She wilts, her shoulders sagging, at the thought that this man may very well be all she truly has to learn from. "Please do not do this. She will be of more use to both of us if she's free. And the Circle will come for her. And they will come for Eve and I , if not simply as a means of hoping to get to you. What deterrent do we have against them? How will I train while they hound me?"

"I'll send the Masooda the footage," Francis tells Rae, dismissing her worries with a wave of his hand. "I'm sure that she'll agree that Miss Knight needs to learn some manners. They'll get her back eventually . I'm doing them a favour, really."

Rae is entirely disarmed by the blase dismissal of her concerns. Turning to grimace at the form of Aubrey being dragged away, she lowers her head and nods in agreement. "Alright, but she will hate both of us for this. And the Circle."  Rising from her seat, she walks to stand before Francis. "If that is all for the evening, then I'll take my leave. I'll return tomorrow to begin my combat training after a quick stop to Keble. And I once again risk overextending your kindness by asking, but is there someone else around for me to eat? The effort with the Udjat and Pseshkf have left me hungry, and I will need my strength to create my first ghoul tonight."

"Of course," Francis tells Rae, gesturing to the door. "My herd is your herd. There are several vessels housed here. You may take your pick."

At the mention of his herd, a brief wave washes over Rae, the shadow of what once had been the sensation of nausea.  "Thank you for your generosity. I will feed and be on my way, and meet you here tomorrow evening to continue my training."  With a nod, Rae continues onward through the door indicated by Francis, while the shreds of her humanity plead with her to leave this place without making herself a further accessory to the horrors of which this man was capable. 

As Rae wanders the maze of corridors beneath Blenheim, she finds James approaching her from the other direction. "Miss Andrews? If you'd follow me," he tells her, guiding Rae up a flight of stairs to a sort of gallery level overlooking a number of glass-ceilinged cells. The arrangement is like some kind of bizarre zoo. Each room appears comfortable enough and has been equipped with the amenities of the inhabitant's 'natural habitat'. However, they are nevertheless kept imprisoned to act as food.

As she stands before the enclosures of the humans who have been reduced to livestock, profound disgust and horror freeze her to the spot and leave her unable to speak. One of the first lessons that she learned was the inhuman regard of the elders for anything mortal, even of anything Kindred that they did not consider their equal or their better. But witnessing the work of the terrible blade of time upon the perspective of Kindred who could no longer remember what it was like to be human shocked her to her core. She could feel the images of the pens searing themselves into her mind as she looked out across them, and for a time she just stood there. Watching.  Eventually, she does walk down to the entrances of the cages. There were several people that looked to be about her age, and so she stops at the cage of a young woman. Dark hair and pale skin remind her of Lyra, but the features are more weary, an exhaustion at the corners of the eyes that speaks to sadness. Entering, the woman raises her eyes to Rae and smiles an empty smile. She stands and cranes her neck to the left, bringing taut the soft skin. Rae approaches her, sure that the servant, James, could still see her. But that was of little consequence before what she now found herself taking part in. She  reaches out and holds the absent young  woman to her with trembling desperation. While warm and c onscious, the woman gave no response, and it brought back memories of adolescence. Of clutching her stuffed animals as closely to her chest as she could in the gentle night while she silently sobbed. Wishing that the contact would wash away the cruelty of peers who ostracized her at every turn and punished her whenever she dared to feel happiness in their vicinity. Two  solemn tears of blood fall past her cheeks. " I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. " Then she sinks her teeth into the flesh and drinks,  praying to the darkness that now lays itself across the bed of her soul that even a sliver of the euphoria of the Kiss would slip through the bars that holds this woman's mind prisoner.  Releasing the mortal before she's had too much, Rae  then moves on and repeats this ritual with a young man and another young  woman. Leaving once she's had her fill, she wipes the  blood from her face and straightens up, taking a deep  breath. There was more to accomplish on this terrible  night, a glimpse of tenderness in all this cold apathy. Walking back up to the overlook of the prison, she nods to James.  "I would like to return home, please."

James nods, seemingly a man of few words and sends a text on his phone, before guiding Rae back upstairs to where Parker is waiting with the car.

The stake is withdrawn from Aubrey's chest, causing her to awaken with a sudden jolt. She's lying in a bare, windowless cell with a young man crouching over her, bloody stake in his hands. He stares at her with dark eyes full of terror.

The staked bolt is withdrawn and with it comes a piercing, primal shriek ー twisting and guttural ー which quickly morphs from one of pain to unmitigated rage. Aubrey barely even notices the man in the cell with her until she finally relents before going hoarse. Even then, she can barely register him beyond the image of that shitstained face seared into her corneas, and beside it, that of Rae’s as the girl relented almost immediately to leave her behind. When finally she gains the wherewithal to speak again, she glares at him, still holding the stake in his hands. “Who are you and where the fuck is he.” Her awe flares around her, the beast within lashing and near-feral.

Aubrey's cell mate raises a quivering arm to point at the door. "M-mark. I'm Mark," he stammers. Mark is dressed in a well cut set of white linen pyjamas and is barefoot.

Aubrey regards him for a moment but moves to the door, pounding against the sheet of metal twice. “Where the fuck are you Francis,”  she yells as her fist slams the door again. ”Give me that,”  she looks at the boy and then to the stake in his hand, her awe  intensifying into a wave of pure majesty against him as she extends her hand expectantly, “And tell me who you are , Mark.”

"Who I am?" Mark asks in doe-eyed confusion, handing Aubrey the crossbow bolt. "I'm Mark. I'm a student. PPE at Balliol."

"That's all?"  She lets out a deflated sigh, taking the bolt from him and looking it over. The temptation to snap it in two flashes briefly through her mind, but there was always the chance it could still prove useful. Instead she slips it within the inner pockets of the light jacket she wore. "How long have you been here. What do you know of Francis de la Fontaine."  She pauses to look closer at his neck, scanning for signs of puncture wounds. "...Have you any reason to be here beyond being food?"

"Um, I'm not exactly sure," Mark admits scratching the back of his neck bashfully. "Time sort of blurs together down here. The guy in charge is alright though. He put a PS3 in my room with AC2!"

Aubrey looks about the room for an air conditioner and half-questions to herself why the fuck that’d get a human so excited, but she chooses to ignore the walking lunch and look back to the door. Taking a closer look for whatever locking mechanism it employed, she reasoned there must be a way in and out. If years of slasher flicks and scream-queening had taught her anything, it was that psychos like this often overvalued their own power and security. In this case however, she wasn’t so sure right now. “My neck is sore and I’m having, like, a real shit night, Mark,”  she finally sighs as she resigns herself to wait for at least a little while for her captor to arrive.  “Rub my shoulders while I wait here, ‘kay?”