12015/Vampire Coyote Talks

Vampire Coyote Talks
Date of Scene:	15 July 2022
Location:	The Velvet Room - Sitting Room
Synopsis:	Mercy and Lydia meet up at the Velvet Room and have a pleasant little chat.
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Mercy Thompson

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    One of the unexpected side effects of suddenly cutting yourself off from the Brotherhood that Lydia wasn't prepared for was the loneliness. It was one thing living up in an asteroid always full of people and another going back to living in your own apartment. Sure her apartment is nice and cozy, but after a while she just misses people.

    She guesses that's why she's spending so much time in the Velvet Room recently. On the off chance that somebody might come by that she can chat with. She sitting at the bar, with her laptop propped open before her, and a good dozen or so hand written journals scattered about her. Off to one side a half drunk Manhattan sits, with its ice slowly melting and watering down the drink.

    She's dressed casually, in jeans and a simple peach colored blouse, and is leaning back on the stool, looking at a page in her word document as if she was trying to will words to just *appear* on the page. A nice pen is stuck in the starfield of her ectoplasm, lazily turning end over end as she stares blankly at her laptop.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    It never rains, but it pours. That's the way it works in mechanic shops and life in general. Mercy's life has been very 'interesting' of late. In the that old curse of may you live in interesting times sort of way. She needs more sleep, has had a rough and long last night. But she has things to, and can't rest just yet. The door that glows blue starts to do its flicker and sputter thing for a bit and finally opening as Mercy stumbles inside.
    The slim woman is in jeans and a tee shirt like usual. But she's got some darker circles under her brown eyes that are not normally there. Muttering under her breath about dumb magic doors, she stretches and starts to head for the cookie tub she left before, and the note she rote.
    She pauses when half way there and sniffs subtly. Turning her attention over, "Oh. Hi Lydia. Sorry I missed you at first. How you doing?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "I'm doing as well as can be expected," Lydia says with an exaggerated sigh. "Getting this book together is proving to be a bit tougher than I had originally thought." She takes a small sip of her Manhattan with a grimace. "I have a newfound appreciation for non-fiction writers. You have to stick to the facts but work them in a way to make them interesting. With fiction you can just... make up whatever it is that you want."

    "Your cookies were a big hit, by the way," she says, turning in her stool to face the coyote. "Everybody loved them. I'll have to get your recipe from you, since I'm something of a baker myself. I know it's odd, a vampire who bakes, but I rather quite enjoy it."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "The one you are writing or something else?" Mercy can read peoples body language, even vampires, pretty well. That sigh spoke volumes to her. She turns her direction and walks over toward where Lydia is. She rubs at her face with a hand to aid waking up and focusing. "Glad to hear it. Like I think I said before, if you got a favorite I can at least make a small batch for the scent if nothing else." Motioning to a seat, "may I sit and join you? Why would a vampire who bakes be odder then a coyote that bakes?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "The one I'm writing," answers Lydia. "I was neck deep in the Angel invasion. I know all the key players... heck, I /was/ one of the key players, so I know what went on behind the scenes." She turns from Mercy to look at the journals that litter the counter. "It's an important story that needs to be told. People need to /understand/ why it happened. It's more than just... 'the Archangel Michael went crazy and tried to destroy the universe,' though that's certainly part of it." She snorts as she pats one of the journals affectionately, "I'm calling it the Book of Lydia. The height of hubris, I know, but everything about it is biblical in every sense."

    "The problem is that there needs to be two versions," she explains. "One that goes to mass market. One that tells the tale, but one that is also... /digestible/." She purses her lips, "Then there will be the one that's the true Book. The one that people will find if they want to learn uncomfortable Truths about our universe and the nature of God. It's a dangerous book."

    She lets that hang heavy in the air before she changes subjects, "I enjoy the tastes, too. I /can/ eat, though there's little point to it." She gestures to the stool next to her, offering it to Mercy, "Well, a coyote still eats food, yes? Vampires, in general, don't."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy looks at the journals and says, "you try maybe doing it like Bram Stoker's Dracula? The book I mean of course. Letters that share a point of view and their emotional connection to the events. When taken as a whole share why and what happened." Mercy shakes her head, "Never mind. You're the professional and it isn't my place to tell you how to write. I wouldn't like someone I just met telling me how to change the oil on a Bug."
    Mercy will take the seat her small frame hitting the chair harder then she meant to. A big yawn comes on as she covers her mouth and goes through it all before repeating, "Sorry. Long night. Coyotes are small game predators, they eat meat. Maybe some berries, or they get into the food left behind by lazy campers. They don't bake however." She grins a bit, "picture a coyote with an oven mitt over their muzzle to try and get a sheet in and out of the thing. Or how many hairs there be in it."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia nods at Mercy's suggestion. "The problem with that is that I'd be doing that with real life people who are still alive. I'd be putting words in their mouths. Again, it works for fiction, but not so much for non-fiction." She chuckles and shakes her head, "It also doesn't help that I'm writing the true Book in Hebrew, while the mass market one is going to be in English. At this point I'm just making more work for myself."

    She nods to Marcy, and can't help but chuckle at the thought of a coyote with an oven mitt on it's muzzle trying to get a sheet of cookies into an oven. "Well, yes," she concedes, "but you're not /just/ a coyote. You're human, too. Or a mix of both. /You/ can eat cookies just fine when you're human. I subsist on blood, regardless of what shape I take."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    I hardly like writing anything for my job and that is how I get my money. I can't be more help unfortunately. Maybe give it some young fresh faced outsider so everyone can babble exposition at her."
    Mercy puts her elbows carefully on the edge of the table with all the books and sets her chin in hands. "I can eat the cookies as a Coyote too, well not chocolate ones. Just baking them is hard." She doesn't flinch about Lydia's diet. Just nods along agreeably really. Then she smiles and asks, "Personal question. What's your favorite place to take a sip from?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    She chuckles as Mercy tries some more helpful advice. "No, it's fine. Really it's mostly about having five thousand pages of notes and whittling it down to around four hundred for the mass market book. I'm gunning for about twice that for the actual Book. So really it's about taking all this information, stripping it down to its bare bones and stitching it together so it makes a cohesive narrative. The hard part is deciding what to keep and what to toss because /everything/ seems important at the time."

    She tilts her head at Mercy's sudden question. "Inner thigh," she says, opening her legs a bit to pat the spot in question. "Femoral artery. Though when I go there there's a usually more than just feeding going on," she says with a suggestive wiggle of the eyebrows.

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Not a job I envy," states Mercy about the book. Collating that much data sounds like a level of hell to her. Mercy's eyes drop to the thigh and then back up with a knowing nod. "You learn the main arteries for hunting, though on animals more the humans in my cause." There's a polite smile at the joke, "I was just curious and think my edit button is not as good as it may normally be." She leans back into the seat she is in and stretches out a bit in it. "So I only seen you doing work mostly. What do you do for fun. Besides," Mercy taps her thigh, "I mean."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia waves a hand dismissively, "Don't worry too much about it. It's not every day you get a chance to talk to a friendly vampire who's willing to talk about vampire things."

    Her tone turns a little sad at the question. "I used to do a lot of activism when I was alive," she says. "Mutant activism. Rallies, mutant outreach programs. I still volunteer for the Bushwick Neighborhood Community Watch, even though my Golem does more to protect Mutant Town than I do at this point." She lets out a little wry chuckle, "And don't get me wrong. What I do for work I also do for fun. If I wasn't making a living off of writing, I'd be doing it anyway. You should see my Ao3 account."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "I can get the 'love your work' part," admits Mercy as she smiles. "I actually got a degree in history, but life threw me a curve and I found my real passion in mechanics." Mercy seems less interested in the 'vampire' part as she is in getting to know Lydia as a person. She admits with a softer voice, "I never really attended that sort of stuff, even if I don't tolerate it at all. Civil rights I mean. I do my best to blend in and not draw attention. When you got friends who remember literal witch hunts, it leaves a mark on you." Mercy then goes on to say, "I ran into one guy who clearly was a racist not long ago. Must have used the word 'mutie' every other word. Shot a gun at a guy even. To be fair the guy was showing off some clear supernatural abilities."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia shakes her head. "Can't really go stealth if you glow soft green," she says. "So I decided to be out and proud. And don't get me started on witch hunts," she says. "I'm Jewish, too. My family tree was pruned nearly to extinction in World War 2."

    "I've seen Genosha," she continues. "My sister was a victim of the Magistrates and was turned into a mindless weapon for them. We became sisters back when she thought that she had no family left." She shakes her head. "Being afraid of what you are is what they want. They /want/ you to hide it. They /want/ you to live in fear. You don't have to advertise it, but for the marginalized, every act of self love is a radical act."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "I didn't get the racial thing as bad, but I am half Native America." Mercy grins over at Lydia, "I'm sure we both gotten the 'corrupting influence' rant aimed at us at one point or another." Though she reminds, "I was a history major. That whole deal was absolutely unacceptable. The fact people don't believe it happened boggles my mind." Enough to make you growl and bite someone.
    "I don't know how I'd do if I went there. I try to stick to North America as much as possible. I think this is part of who I am, I get territorial. I can understand the surrogate family. Depending on how you look at it I had...like four fathers, three mothers, and don't get me on the extended family." Showing teeth in her grin now, "You don't run me off too soon, you'll learn I'm brutally honest."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia lets out a soft chuckle, "My mother..." she shakes her head. "She's a little bit racist in that liberal 'but I've got a Black friend!' kind of way. She absolutely /freaked/ when I started glowing. Spent nearly a year of my life with her trying to find a cure for it, which you would think she would know better being one of the nations top neurosurgeons."

    "That's.... a /lot/ of family," Lydia admits. "Mine is still relatively small. Again, mostly pruned in World War two. I'm an only child. I love 'em, though, warts and all."

    She shakes her head. "Brutal honesty doesn't scare me. Mys-" she cuts herself off, and a distant, dark look crosses her features, but vanishes nearly as quick as it came. "My ex wasn't one for mincing words."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Ouch," winces Mercy about the 'have a black friend' comment. "I'm blessed my mother didn't take me to a church or anything when she found a coyote cub in the crib of her three month old."
    Mercy nods her head about her surrogate family. "Well direct blood family I only have my mother. Father died before he knew mom was pregnant."
    The almost miss saying of her name gets Mercy to tip her head, but she waves it off as maybe she's just tired. "That's fine. Didn't meant to get you into bad memories."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Well, I mean, I'm a pretty devout Jew," Lydia says. "Though I haven't really been to my synagogue or seen my Rabbi in about a year." She shakes her head. "I don't really know how well he'd take the news that I'm a vampire now."

    She holds up a hand to forestall a question. "Yes. I'm still kosher. At least, there's precedent there that I can use to argue that I'm kosher since... well... Jews like to argue about this sort of thing. But the long and the short of it is, since I /have/ to consume blood to live, God will forgive me for breaking that one part of being Kosher. It's an issue of pikuach nefesh."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "I get it. I take my own faith seriously, not that I put words to it as much as others." Mercy wrinkles her noses, "even if I'm a Christian I don't care for crosses one bit." She visibly shudders at a bad memory. "Maybe they'll see it akin to the trial of Job in your case?"
    Mercy laughs and says, "I wasn't going to ask if you were Kosher." Though she isn't sure if her cookies are kosher, never came up before. "I think that's a very healthy attitude to have."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia thinks on this a second, "Mm, I don't think so. Job had crap thrown at him to continuously test his faith. For me and blood... it isn't really a matter of retaining faith in God, but rather survival. I simply cannot live without blood." Her face screws into a scowl, "Or maybe I can, but I know that the hungrier I get the less in control I become. If I go too long without I'll be little less than a slavering monster."

    She shakes her head, "But the point is, it'd be like God outlawing oxygen. You /have/ to breathe it to survive, and God /wants/ you to live, so if that's what you have to do in order to live, then God will understand."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "No. Don't starve yourself. I imagine it's like werewolves, hunger steals control and that's a danger to everyone. But maybe it's going to be a long test on keeping your humanity and showing others a way to do the same. I don't know." Mery gives a small shrug as she shows that is all she has. The coyote woman runs a hand through her hair, "I see your point. I just try to see the potential in things and do my best. Maybe that's why I am a mechanic."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Again, there's a brief flash of... something, (perhaps regret?) when Mercy mentions keeping one's humanity. "I'm really not in any hurry to figure it out, to be honest," Lydia says. "I've got all of eternity to do so, as long as I'm careful. And, really. That's all we can ever do, yeah? Just doing our best."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "Well far as I know I have a normal human life expectancy." Mercy casually stands and stretches to get her cookie bin she delivered and then reclaims her seat, moving helps her think better especially when tired. "We need a lighter topic."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Alright," Lydia says, and thinks for a moment. "How many vampires have you met before me?" Trying to think of a new subject off the top of your head is harder than it looks!

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    "I had a semi boss as one for a bit, great guy overall. Of course it wasn't a long term thing. I came here to the city not long after." Mercy shrugs a shoulder and says, "Normally not as much a big city girl. But we're close enough to some 'natural' lands I can go for a run when I get that itch. Pretty sure I surprised a person or two with seeing me in the park, or catching sight of a semi nude me before I got my clothes on. Hazard of looking like an animal at times though, got the scars on my ass when a farm got the drop on me with buckshot."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    Lydia lets out a soft chuckle, "I'm a big city girl myself." She drops her carefully cultured neutral American accent in favor of her natural one, "Brooklyn born and raised. Though when I sound like this it's like I'm gonna whack somebody and make them sleep with the fishes."

    She grins and returns to the more neutral, if not slightly posh accent. "It comes out when I'm angry, though, so you know you've pissed me off if I start sounding like a wise guy. We never really did the camping thing when I was a kid. My parents were always a bit too busy for that. Mostly it was trips out to Central Park."

    "I'm lucky. My shifts are magical in nature, so I don't really have to disrobe or anything. It all just gets..." she waves a hand in the air to indicate kind of all over the place, "... shunted in the Astral somewhere. Not really sure where."

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy touches her ear, "I've notice lots of people's accents can change the more emotional they get. Mind you some emotions can really carry their own scent as well." She goes on to explain, "Where as I grew up somewhere not even Google Maps can find. Central Park is good for a park in the middle of a giant city. There's even some trees and woods which is nice."
    She says, "I get a lot smaller so getting out of the clothes is not too hard, but you can't dress a small coyote and expect it to go well when she turns back to a human." Mercy has to stifle another long hard yawn as she rubs at her face a bit. "Sorry. I am trying to be sure I don't go to bed too early but think I should get going before too much longer."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
    "Allright," Lydia says, nodding to Marcy. "I should probably get back to working on my book. It's not going to write itself," she says with a chuckle. "No matter how much I wish it might. It was good talking to you!"

Mercy Thompson has posed:
    Mercy will give a small wave as she stands. "Don't work too hard. Get some night air, take a flight or run through the park. Maybe that will help with your task." Farewells said, and Mercy forgetting to look to see if there were any notes on the white board, the coyote heads for the door. "Gnight, Lydia."