[Sodium_noir] Club Harlequin, where the lights dim

[eagandigh]

Harle, Colombine & Gang, Maurice
Ravnos Superstars & Band, slightly irate Serpent
Club Harlequin
 
  
The Harlequin didn't even notice Maurice come into the club. An
oversight that wouldn't strike him until much later that night. Instead
the Setite had found himself a seat and lit a cigar before he was even
conscious of the other Vampires presence. 
 
It really bugged him that he still couldn't crack that whole smoking
thing. He'd been trying for years now but having the lit end of a
cigarette or cigar that close to his face, so close to his dusky
inflammable flesh, gave him the willies. I bugged him so much he tried
to fake it with simple illusions but the fear of the flame ruined it
everytime. It was a dull and mundane fear he intended to crack one day.
 
Gently he pushed Columbine away and after a moments resistance she
turned to face whatever it was her husband was looking at and then
relented. With a flick of her head she drew her two friends away to a
table nearby and left the Harlequin alone. 
 
Maurice watched the group until Harle noticed him. Somehow the three
women seemed to be more than mere mortals. He was quite sure that the
one playing with the Ravnos was one of their kind. But the others he
couldn't place. He doubted they were vampires, mainly because they drank
something other than blood. And he doubted that they were faking it. But
what were they? Mages? He hated that term, it sounded to much like
Gandalf or Merlin and he never had encountered anyone meeting that
description. Panic certainly wasn't remotely like what you thought of if
you heard the word 'mage', for example.
Then there was the Harlequin himself.
 
The Ravnos placed his hand on the bar and ran it along the marbled
surface as he strolled the length of it to Maurice.  
 
The strangeness of their kind striked Maurice. The creature walking
towards him looked quite young and his clothes did nothing to impress
age or wisdom or strength on the onlooker. Still despite that he had an
air of ... control, despite a better word, of this place. All this
imagery went to bits if you knew that he was probably the oldest
'living' creature in the city. Who knows what this place here had looked
like when he had last seen the sun shining on his face. What cultures
had he experienced during his life, not only removed by space, but also
by time. Kingdoms fallen and rulers turned to dust and forgotten. What
power had a creature like him amassed during all these years. How much
of what people considered being human had survived all these years and
what did this term mean to someone like him? Maurice smiled inwardly, he
had lost a lot of that in the few years he had spent in the darkness. He
had evolved much since then. How would he be, if he survived as long as
the Harlequin. The serpent inside him hissed.
And how many of those that were like the Harlequin were hiding in the
city, unseen? Maurice saw the layers upon layers of of age and power
that marked the community of the undead. On the lowest part, recently
embraced rabble or those to weak to rise above the mire. Then, creatures
like himself or Titus Bane, above the mere walking dead, who thought
from night to night, but instead had amassed a bit of power and hungry
for more. And above us, he thought, the layer of Papa Saturday, Santiago
or the Camarilla Prince. Elder, yes, but still not really that old if
you think in centuries, instead of in decades. But old enough to begin
to vanish behind the scene, but pulling the strings. If they coughed,
the city trembled. And above them, the Harlequin and who else? Who was
hiding like the Harlequin in plain sight, but being old enough, that the
city would probably collapse if they just sneezed? And above them?
Maurice tried to surpress a shudder just at the thought of it. And then:
In which category were the Izcoatl? Was the fight to be doomed to fail,
before it even had begun?
 
"I'd offer you a drink ..." he begins with his customary smile. "but
there's not even anyone around to bother with the lie tonight!" 
 
Maurice looked up at the owner of the place, then took a look around. He
smiled back. "Yess, it sseemss to be rassser quiet tonight. Iss ssere
anosser event taking plasse in ssiss great ssity ssat people want to
shun ssiss fine esstablishment and find fun ssomewhere elsse?"
 
He took a puff from the cigar and let the smoke out slowly, while he
said. "I 'ave 'eard ssat ssere are sstrange people looking for fun
tonight. For example by showing of wiss a ssword and pisssing of Titus
Bane. Not my type of fun, but people tend to like different ssingss."
 
[Yeah, I know. Wham. But that song just dropped into my mind, while I
was writing the post - and made me realise, how old I am ;). And I
assumed that Maurice knows or at least has a rough picture of the
Harlequin's age. Papa Saturday might know or suspect and would have told
him. I hope I am not to presumtous]
 
[In the name of jesus christ won't you fear my name / I've been around
since moses, your preacher never came /
You'll see, you'll see her when she starts to TAG]
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