Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rio strolled down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, enjoying the cloudy but pleasant early evening. His glass-like wings were tucked carefully behind him, hiding somewhat a few broken pinions. They would grow back, but in the meantime he thought it looked a little on the shoddy and unkempt side, which he wasn't personally fond of, so he was doing his best to, well...look his best, really.

You're the one who was rolling around the floor, chimed a female voice inside his head. Alex. You can't tell me you didn't know it would happen.

It was worth it, he thought back simply, before pulling open the door to the little toyshop.

It is a rare thing for Naraka to be lurking around the main part of the store, and yet, that's where he's found himself today. The street is too bright, the basement too dark. His only option is to find some window to lurk in like a frumpy old cat until it's dark enough to go outside.

And he's not alone. Kesin has either forgiven him for leaving him in Guatemala, or he's just decided being angry isn't worth it, because he's started talking to him again instead of just shouting swearwords in various languages. Colorful language is exciting, perhaps, when you are spectating, but gets to be rather boring when it's constantly directed at you. Kesin's change of heart doesn't hurt Naraka's feelings at all.

To the door opening, the big black and white bird rises from his perch on the couch with a whistle and a cough. "AHHH AHHH! CUSTOMER!" He shouts at anyone who will listen.

Naraka looks over with something of a frown. Freaks he knows, he'd expected. New freaks hadn't really entered into his equation.

Kesin comes edging his way over the end of the couch and gives the new fellow the old eye. Sizing him up, of course, to see whether he might be of any use. "Hello, hello, hello. Hello, fine sir. Welcome, welcome."

"Don't trust ," Naraka grunts, glancing his way and then looking back to the street. "He just wants to see what you've got to eat."

"Lies, lies!!" Kesin laments. "Oh, how he lies! Bad, nasty vampire. Oh oh! He hurts Kesin so!!!!" Kes flirts his wings and does his very best impression of despondency. "Rio Rio. I flew over Rio. A smelly little dike! Fah fah. A velvet, crah... I'm not stuffed beast!"

"He IS a velvet," Naraka says, snorting. "He just doesn't like to think he is."

Naraka doesn't like this fellow's chatty nature or his cheerful disposition. He was all set to be dour and brooding and generally an unpleasant person for the afternoon. "Always. Don't bother feeding him."

"Tcha!" Kesin exclaims. "O, he has little faith. So little faith! I will speak to you even if you feed me not! See how good I am!" Kesin turns back, cocking a bright blue eye, evidently pleased with himself despite Naraka snickering at him from the corner. "All over," Kesin replies, puffing up his white chest with pride. "All over! All from below the gulf and up and up!!!"

Naraka tries to put on a look of indifference rather than the scowl he feels he'd been wearing and answers shortly, "A vampire. yes."

Kesin peers over his fingers, and then down under his palm a little superciliously. Evidently, he really has nothing. A disappointment, but he accepts any sort of attention. "Nah nah! Stupid vampire left me there! Left me in the sun and the stink and made me fly all the way, all the way back!"

Naraka watches him cooly, choosing to ignore Kesin's accusations. There is a long pause, and then he says abruptly, "How are we to know? After so many years, we begin to forget to put tallies on the wall. Almost two thousand years. I'm hardly sure anymore." And then, more quietly, "My name is Naraka."

"TTTSSSSSS" Kesin hisses in response, like a balloon deflating slowly. He'd never given them much consideration, though he knows that women are more likely to give him food. "Why is this?"

Naraka looks over at Kesin, brooding for a moment. "Perhaps there aren't many of us left. It seems to be a.... a problem," he says with an abrupt laugh and a feral smile. It is sardonic, to say, perhaps, that it is not a problem in the least. "I do not socialize with them, though. When I meet another vampire, it is generally by accident. And I tend not to speak with them very long. My people can be.... a little pragmatic for my tastes." He frowns a little.

"Nah nah," Kesin says with absolute certainty. "Many ugly women. There are many. And horrible ones. They throw crocks and kitchen pots at me!"

"No," Naraka grumbles, uncomfortable at the thought of hanging around with random vampires and hardly amused at Kesin's negativity. "I don't know. I don't keep an eye on the population tallies, though I know someone who does. The older families are dying out. One would guess there would be more. But I suppose we are somewhat phlegmatic as a species."

"There are," Kesin replies stoutly, "hideous ones with warts and boils! Kia!!! They are suspicious and nasty! I only ate one tortilla!"

At that, Naraka has to chuckle a little bit. "Yeah, I'm very sure. Well... The age of the vampire is over, or so I hear. The noble vampires. Now we just stalk the filthy urban streets like rats. Like any other sort of vermin." He laughs a little. "The dark ages are over. I said we are phlegmatic. So it's true. And archaic. Families aren't important anymore. The younger vampires inherit the wind."

"That was all that was there," Kesin hisses, clacking his beak. He fluffs his feathers with petty rage and gives the plushes on the further wall a stern look. "She left them out. She was so fat! She didn't need any, herself! Fah!"

Naraka remains quiet for a while, looking dour. "That's fine with me. I couldn't care less."

Kesin struts angrily back and forth along the cushions, thinking of the horrible woman who threw things at him, among others. She was particularly awful, though, as she had managed to wing him. "She would have cooked me up! But Kesin is too clever for fat, ugly old women! HA!"

Naraka looks at him with a tired, unamused expression. "Why should I? I have no children. I never had a vampiric family. I keep friends. Two of them happen to be vampires. That's all there is."

"This old woman had evil." Kesin flies over to Naraka and lands roughly on his shoulder. He picks at the poor fellow's hair for a moment with idle roughness and then turns around, flipping his tail into his face. "Ha! But Naraka is not rid of me so easily!"

"O Kesin... you stop that. Nobody cares." Naraka waves a hand and sighs. "Someone might," he says with extreme indifference. "Even a vampire child died without some kind of nurturing. There are very few born vampires, though. Most of them are made, and the rules are very simple. Don't go into the sun. Drink blood. Any fool could figure it out."

Kesin continues to bother Naraka until the snarky vampire has had enough and shoos him away. Kesin takes to stalking the window, looking outside.

"Dealing with it is their own problem. A personal one. Who's responsible for that but themselves?" Naraka's mood visibly darkens as he ponders his own past. "Hmph. Well.... alright, then. I suppose I don't mind."

"Mmm. I am afaid I was never a very good host. goodbye, then. " Naraka feels irritable with himself for being, as usual, fairly antisocial. But there's not much that he can do about that.

"Kia," Kesin says, hopping back to the sill. "You go eh? Look out for mean women, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha."

Naraka waves blandly and lets the fellow be. Kesin merely clucks after him in his short, coughing sort of laugh.