Tell Me Your Secrets

[Trillian]

She listened to the description of Risk as Kerr told it - brief and to the point.  A club where all supernaturals could mix, as well as mortals who knew, and it was mostly a vampire club where the species in question could feed from those willing.  It was clever, to make such a place a nightclub, but she supposed that through the ages there would have been inns, or gentleman clubs, or anything that would have been allowed to practise exclusivity.

"How many, uh... not humans... are in the city presently?" she asked, wondering if he\'d know such a statistic off the top of his head.  Perhaps not the exact number, but he\'d know the percentage certainly, if he was at an organisation such as the Oligarchy - who were esteemed enough to lead the many.

Her next question would be about how many fire demons were in the city, and the one after that would be to ask him if there were many battles between the different opposing demons.

[Existentially Odd]

He gnawed briefly on his tongue stud while he contemplated giving her the statistic that would some mortals in the city nervous.  He supposed she had a right to understand the extent of just how \'special\' her home city was, but wasn\'t certain she\'d be relieved by it.

"Well... this city has a fairly high amount of supernaturals living in it.  Every city has them, of course, but they travel here because of something called ley lines - which are either lines where the barrier between our plane and other planes of existence are very thin or where extraordinary amounts of power emanates, drawing the supernatural in... or both.  Because of that there\'s about an eight percent supernatural presence here in this city."

He watched her reaction and when she then continued by asking about her species, he started to feel out of his depth.  "Uh, well, I don\'t have a lot to do with demons per se - I mean, I work with them here at the Oligarchy, but I don\'t govern their species, make rulings or have them address me in council, so I\'m really not very familiar with the exact numbers.  I would say there\'s quite a number more of the elemental demons - water, fire, earth, air - simply because they seem to be the most common ones I hear conversations about.  Note, I\'m not basing that guess on any sort of facts, just on hearsay around the office," he admitted, feeling a bit silly for being unable to tell her the facts.  He gave an awkward laugh, thinking that she seemed to be a woman who would like facts.

His smile turned more assured when she asked about in-fighting.  "Well, yes, there are many oppositional forces that decide to war within the city, demons amongst them.  The greatest part of the Oligarchy\'s job is to suppress tension, avert very obvious conflict - anything that alerts mortals to anything out of the ordinary is highly detrimental to our cause, as you would guess - and to keep things civil.  Or patch everything up if it goes wrong," he conceded, with an affable nod and a shrug.  They were fallible, but they certainly kept peace in the city, for the most part.

[Trillian]

She stared at him for a moment, thinking about what he\'d said about her great grandmother likely being a fire demon and because she\'d been found drowned, had likely been attacked by a demon of opposing force.  Water.

"So I run the risk of being attacked by a water demon," she said, not asking so much as telling herself this was a real possibility.  "If I haven\'t been attacked so far, does that mean my... fire demon blood is so weak it\'s not attracting the opposition?"

This was a guess, and she supposed that Kerr would likely not know.  Another thought occured to her, but she waited for Kerr to finish answering her first question before she asked the next one.

"Are you one of many Oligarchs?"  She waited for his affirmation.  "Would you be the Oligarch for Vampires, because you\'re a vampire?"  She waited for him to answer this question as well before she went to the one she was really after.  "Is there an Oligarch for Demons?"

[Existentially Odd]

"Well... it could be that your blood is diluted enough to escape notice, but I doubt it very much.  I think it more likely that you\'ve simply not encountered a water demon contrary enough to go against the laws the Oligarchy has set in place in the city - plus, the world has changed a great deal since your great grandmother\'s day," he smiled ironically at her, for he\'d seen such changes personally.  "The world is a far more accommodating place now and even supernatural species have learned to embrace their differences and just... get along."
 
He wasn\'t surprised when she jagged away from this line of conversation to something seemingly unrelated, but when her final question came, he understood.  She really wasn\'t the type to prevaricate or hypothesise when it came to conversation; she said what she meant and when she was given an answer, she didn\'t seem to feel the need to rehash it from another angle, as people so often did.  It was unique and he liked it.
 
"There is, yes, and I intend for him to be my first port of call when looking for contacts for you, don\'t worry," Kerr grinned, planning to send an email as soon as their conversation was done.  Demons didn\'t always keep nocturnal hours and the current Oligarch for Demons happened to prefer existing diurnally, so it would be rude to contact him now and disturb his slumber.
 
"Actually," the Irishman interrupted himself, frowning thoughtfully and tapping his tongue stud against the roof of his mouth for a moment before he continued.  "He\'ll be in tomorrow - would you like me to see if he has an appointment available and you can simply... cut out the middle man?" he grinned affably, pointing to himself.  "The only reason you saw me tonight was your absolute determination to get some answers, otherwise you would\'ve been encouraged to seek a daytime appointment, when the demons and fae generally hold their appointment sessions."
 
It wasn\'t that he wanted to eliminate himself from her equation; oddly enough, he really wanted to know how she got on.  The fact that she was not of his species really limited his ability to help her, though, and it seemed ludicrous for him to keep sending out feelers on her behalf when she could accomplish it all herself.  He supposed it would mean he would never see her again, but the move was certainly best for her.  He was only delayng the inevitable by gallantly taking her card and promising to call, anyway (and perhaps it was stupidity that had blocked him from making this offer before now... perhaps it was something far more shady; he wouldn\'t admit to either just yet).

[Trillian]

"I don\'t think the Oligarch for Demons would want to answer my simple questions personally, would he?" she asked, surprised.  She\'d thought Kerr\'s earlier offer of finding someone to teach her about her powers sounded more appropriate.  She didn\'t think it would be wise to pester the Oligarch for Demons about her blossoming talents with a small flame when he was probably overseeing more important matters - this was a political regime, after all.  "If someone is willing to assign themselves to me, I\'d be happy to--"

She stopped abruptly, a new consideration entering her head.

"It\'s still appropriate to pay for such lessons with money, isn\'t it?  I know it\'s hardly studying the violin, but I don\'t know much about demon culture.  Why I need the lessons, really," she added, then saw her catch-22 before giving a small giggle (albeit nervously) and then shyly looking towards her coffee, reaching for it upon the table nearby in order to compose herself.

[Existentially Odd]

He chuckled with her and stood as he spoke, seeing that she was going to drink her coffee.  "No, no, it\'s not like that," he demurred, then walked swiftly out of the sitting room into the next room.  She was only alone for the briefest of moments before he was back, having grabbed his laptop off his desk and brought it in with him.
 
He sat back down on his armchair - but forward on the seat - and placed the machine on the coffee table beside her coffee tray of treats, opening it up and typing his password in as he continued speaking.  "It\'s an Oligarch\'s job to answer all questions from their people and he\'ll be happy to help you - he\'ll probably also know some fire demons who will help you out.  I wouldn\'t mention money if I were you, though; it\'s a matter of pride for a demon to know what their skills are and how they should work but I can imagine you\'d be fleeced for no good reason if you made an offer like that.  Do you have a lot of money to throw around?" he teased, grinning cheekily up at her as his password was accepted and his laptop began loading up properly.

[Trillian]

Coffee as she had it was white with one sugar, and once it was to her liking, she gave it a sip, and by that time Kerr was already back in the room with his laptop.  She said nothing as he sat and spoke, though she believed the laptop had been brought out here for her benefit.  She was curious as to what he would show her, or do for her, on his computer, but his words were what drew her most of all.  She had a few comments lined up for him about how different the Oligarchy seemed to be from the world of human politics, but then all thoughts such as those disappeared from her head as he questioned her about money - good naturedly of course, but something to address all the same.

"I get paid well, but I also have family money," she said, not bothering to be defensive about her status like her mother was, but not bragging about it like her father did either.  "I don\'t think it\'s right to get tutored without some form of payment though," she said, more to herself than to Kerr, but it was still for his benefit.  "I\'ll make sure to ask about anything up front," she said, not intending to get fleeced but also ready to pay thousands if it had to come to that.

She needed to know.

[Existentially Odd]

All he could do was make her aware and arrange the meetings, so he guessed there was nothing else for him to say to that, beyond an agreeable, \'Okay.\'  He looked away from her face (which seemed to be getting lovelier the longer he was with her... was that possible?) and at the screen on his laptop.

His index finger flicked and tapped on the sensor pad to open the collective Oligarch\'s appointment schedules, to see that there were quite a few openings for the Demon Oligarch, before he clicked open his email.  He began a correspondence with the appropriate being before he started to speak, his fingers flying over the keys proving that he was very at home with computers.

"I\'m just emailing your Oligarch now," he murmured, glancing at her ever so briefly before looking back at what his nimble fingers were composing.  "Letting him know your situation, what I\'ve told you, what you\'d like from here on out.  There are quite a few appointment times open tomorrow afternoon, do you have a preference for when you\'d like to come in?"  Clicking back to the other open program, Kerr read out time slots he thought she\'d like, before he wrote her name into the appropriate slot and saved it.  He then went back and put that information into the email he was sending, to reinforce when Jenna would be there to see the Oligarch and who she was.

"Okay, here\'s what I\'ve said... " he began when he was done, reading the entire email aloud for Jenna\'s input, to be sure she knew what had been relayed on her behalf.  He didn\'t think it an overly big deal that he\'d used adjectives such as \'lovely\' and \'delightful\' in there; he\'d also used \'baffled\', \'stubborn\' and \'determined\', to counterbalance his urge to compliment her excessively, so he figured it worked out.  If she had anything else to add, he did so, before he sent the email off with a smiling announcement to that effect.

"Well then, you\'ll be expected back here tomorrow - I hope you haven\'t felt that tonight has been a waste?" he stated, putting his computer back into sleep mode and closing the screen.  He smiled hopefully, not sitting any farther back in his seat but resting his elbows on his knees, arms dangling between his legs.  He expected Jenna would be taking her leave any second now - and, truthfully, he would be rather glad of that.  Sitting in an intimate setting with her alluring scent for this long - even discussing business - had his senses salivating and he was looking forward to unleashing himself upon someone equally as delectable in Risk, on his way home.  A brief stopover, to tide him over, as it were.

[Trillian]

"Absolutely not," she admonished, reaching out a staying hand in his direction, thinking him silly for thinking she had wasted time in talking to him.  "Thank you for seeing me.  Even though you believe you had no answers for me, you had exactly as much information as I\'ve needed.  I have a lot to process, before my next appointment," she declared.  Getting away from work would be easy enough, considering the amount of hours she put in at the museum and no pending displays or urgent negotiations facing her.

She felt the meeting coming to an end, much as Kerr did, and didn\'t really want it to be over though conflicted about this emotion, much like Kerr was, though without the ability to compare.  She\'d eaten a biscuit to go with her coffee, even though she hadn\'t felt like it, in order to be polite, but there was still a great deal left.  She thanked him for his time and his hospitality.

Standing, and extending her hand to him for shaking, she had a fixed smile in place.

"It was a pleasure, Kerr," she said, and it was, for even though he\'d given her the most bizarre information and there would be many, many more questions before she could properly settle with it, the answer to her own talents had been supplied to her, and it was enough to give her mind rest for the moment.

[Existentially Odd]

"For me also," he agreed huskily, standing and taking her warm hand in one of his, enfolding the other around the pair so that he could give her an enthusiastic squeeze before he let her go (reluctantly).

He found himself casting around for an excuse to stay with her and found his mouth working before his brain had completely clicked into gear.  "I assume you have a way of getting home?  If not, I\'m planning to drop into Risk on the way home and would be glad to give you a lift anywhere you\'d like to go?"

What am I doing?

[Trillian]

"Oh, thank you, but I\'ve got my car parked outside," she said, gesturing with a small turn of her head before she looked back at Kerr, noting that his hands were very cool around her own.

She didn\'t think anything of his offer, except the Risk part lingered in her mind and she chewed on it thoughtfully.

"I\'ve taken up too much of your time as it is," she said, turning and reaching for her jacket, folding it over her left elbow before looking back at Kerr.  "You know, I\'d always wondered why this city has so many small businesses that stay open late night every night."  Her smile widened.  "That\'s another question answered for me."

She had the idea that upon returning home, she\'d get very little sleep for all that she had to think about tonight.


/end.