COVEN

#5

The rather rustic looking town by the harbour was one of the few that had not just survived the darkness, but flourished in it.

As a result, the scent of the sea was nearly overpowered by the almost impressive amount of rubbish and excrement the people who lived here seemed able to produce. Under the blanket of night, the waters reflected the endless black void of the sky above. She'd be willing to bet that under daylight, they looked significantly less mysterious and were probably a murky, rather concerning brown.

Even knowing that, she couldn't stop herself from pausing as she crossed one of the many wooden bridges that spanned the canals winding their way inland like a spider's web. She looked into the waters only a few metres below her feet. The glimmer of firelight caught on the surface winked back at her, making the edges of the reflected bridge dance on the gently rippled ridges of the water.

Hm. She wasn't sure why she'd expected... ah, nevermind that.

She made it to the end of the bridge, lifting the hem of her cloak from the ground as she took the stairs down, one slow step at a time. She'd let the long ends of her midnight hair escape from the clasp of her cloak tonight. If the memories she'd tasted from that putrid blood had been correct, it would play on the superstitions of the locals rather nicely.

She strode across the stone walkways of one of the more solid parts of town and headed down the street she'd seen.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about the eternal night was how it'd broken down the barriers formed by rigid daylight. Humans had woken with the sun, they had worked, and once the night came, they had all huddled within their buildings. There was no freedom. Everything was caught up in the time that the sun warmed the ground and banished the shadows so many people shied away from.

Now, without the sun, towns like these had grabbed the chance. While some slept, others were out, dancing in the street she now walked. Some twirled fire as others called out to those passing by about their wares. Guards with their iron weapons and, strangely enough, small vials of water secured to their waists, patrolled the streets. They'd proven that they didn't require the sun to have their society function, even if said society was a plague upon the very land itself and deserved to be eradicated.

She found the small shop with the rectangular window framed in flaking gold paint and, after a moment's admiration, pushed open the door. The quaint little bell chimed its greeting, and as she waited for the hurried footsteps shuffling their way out of the back, she took a moment to admire the shop front.

It wasn't anything particularly special. A counter with a few glass boxes that were little more than grime-covered houses for the trinkets within. Half-finished baubles were scattered across a table behind the counter, the chair beside it pulled out like someone had stood up and forgotten their manners. The shop floor was covered in displays, bits of odd looking furniture and other useless items that humans tended to decorate their homes with, accompanied by signs that explained their uses.

She raised an eyebrow. Vampire warding cross indeed.

When the short, round man finally appeared from the back room and hustled behind the counter, she had half the mind to ask him exactly how he proposed to ward her off with a mere ornament, but well, there'd be time for that later.

"Welcome!" he said, slinging the oil-slicked rag that he'd been wiping his hands on over his shoulder.

Without a doubt, this was the one from the memory, albeit he'd since dyed his hair from greys to a light brown and had a rather ridiculous looking mustache glued to his top lip. The small spectacles were missing, but it was a fairly simple matter to match the irises of the man from the memory to the man who stood before her now. Even if the human whose memory she'd watched couldn't distinguish the difference, those lovely little brains of theirs still stored the information for someone else's later use.