Dinner was an elegant affair, everyone involved was dressed to the nines. Many of the women present, like myself wore evening gowns and various amounts of jewelry, and nearly all the males were wearing tuxes or suits or some sort. One man I spotted, an unfamiliar face, seemed to be wearing something that looked out of a Jane Austin novel.
"Come," said Damon, leading me gently away from the door and towards the tables. "We need to get seated, dinner is due to start soon."
"Alright," I replied, feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the finery and colors that surrounded us. This was certainly not the Cruor Luna and I was starting to feel slightly panicked. Now they wouldn't be judging Damon on his ability to plan his events, but his supposed table manners when it came to fine dining. And by extension mine as I was certain that the general population was going to assume he'd taken it upon himself to teach me the rules.
"Relax," Damon whispered, so close to me that his lips brushed my ear. Once again the contact sent a shiver through me. "It's going to be fine."
I belatedly remembered vampire super-hearing. My heart was beating at a furious rhythm and every undead being in the room knew it. Damn, I really hated that. The combination of Damon being so near me as well as my nerves only made that even worse and I felt my breath seize up a bit too. Oh hell! Like a gentlemen, Damon escorted me to our table and when he found my name card he pulled out of chair for me. I muttered a thanks and looked down at the cutlery before me. The plates appeared to be fine china, creamy white with blue willow patterns painted on, I saw many gleaming knives, forks and spoons and quickly tried to remember what Damon had told me when it came to using the correct one.
Soon, Damon and I were joined, by Jasper, Marilyn as well as their company for the evening, all of them dressed nicely as well.
Jasper, before sitting down, beamed at me and kissed my hand. The gesture was strange and I guessed that idea must have shown on my face because he started to howl with laughter. "I'm so sorry Ember," he laughed and I tried my best to smile. "I didn't mean you any harm, just to compliment you on how stunning you look tonight."
"Thank you," I said, feeling an embarrassed flush cover my cheeks. "You just startled me is all, I didn't expect you to do that."
"Then you have my deepest apologies." Jasper said with a sweeping bow, the gesture was silly enough to make me laugh, for real this time. He looked over at Damon, clearly wanting to say more, but was interrupted as the first course, a soup of some kind was placed in front of us.
"Oh parsnips!" Adeline chimed, a look of happiness marking her features as she picked up her spoon. Thankful that I'd gotten a good look at it, I picked up my own and took a cautious sip. It was good, creamy and had a bite of pepper at the end, though I had a feeling that I would probably not order this if I had been given the chance. I still preferred broccoli cheese or chicken noddle over this.
"So Damon," asked Jasper after we'd all been eating quietly for a few minutes. "Have you heard about that new policy Richard is trying to put through at the court?"
This caught my interest as well, I set down my spoon and reached for my glass which had a lovely sort of white wine in it. Given that there was no hint of red or pink in it, I figured it was safe to assume it was blood-free. I took a sip and pretended to be interested in the taste as opposed to what Damon and Jasper were talking about.
"I did," replied Damon, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. I spotted his fangs and concluded that his drink did indeed have blood mixed into it.
"Good," said Jasper. "And what do you think of it?"
I hoped this would be an instance where he'd go into more detail as to what this policy entailed. "I thought it would be obvious given the company I keep," Damon answered, flashing a meaningful look at me. The intensity of his gaze took my breath away. "I think he's too paranoid," he elaborated. "While I admit with the technologies that humanity has created over recent years could be modified to weaponized against us, I do not think that will happen."
"And why is that?" asked Marilyn, taking a sip of her wine, fangs sliding out. "Because you believe humanity is too good for that? While I agree some humans are very good people," she glanced at me. "It is both unwise and foolish to base your feelings on the race as a whole off of one person." I felt a hot sort of feeling run through me. Not quite anger, but maybe injustice was a better word? It was so unfair of her to think Damon's feelings for me had clouded his judgement over something as broad as humanity.
I took another sip of my drink, a warmth settling down into my stomach, I guessed there was indeed a reason they called this stuff liquid courage. "Excuse me," I said, addressing Marilyn before Damon could reply. "But I think you're the one who's misguided."
Dominic made some incoherent noises, outraged that I would dare to talk to Marilyn the way I was, but I refused to be sorry. It was like she said, age and power didn't automatically equal respect. Personally I never felt anyone just deserved respect-flat out. They deserved decency and a chance to earn respect. I was giving Marilyn that chance, but that didn't mean I was going to let her get away with speaking to Damon the way she was. Age didn't mean respect and youth didn't mean foolishness either. I wanted to remind her of that.
"Am I?" she asked, one eyebrow raised at me. "And why do you think that is?"
I had a sudden flashback to Volitare's English class. The cautious question, if I answered well then I earned something maybe respect or just got off the hook for an action. Or I blew it entirely and had to deal with the repercussions of that.
I took another sip of wine and then met Marilyn's gaze. "I think that for one very simple reason," I said. I gestured to all of them with my wine glass and said, "All of you were human once so was everyone in this room, well with one exception." I smiled to myself and heard Jasper chuckle. "And as someone who's spent a large amount of time in the modern human world, I don't see many differences in how people act out there than they do here. You have your leaders and type A personalities here and with humans, the introverted, jokesters, those who are cunning, the ignorant, and the wise and the list really does go on. My point is, humans and vampires, in terms of how we are at the heart of our beings, really aren't that much different. I agree with Damon that you have little to fear from humans, because just like your world, it's full of different types of people. You've dealt with all of them before, only difference is the humans won't suck your blood."
Damon and Jasper laughed at my joke, Adeline looked more startled than anything. I didn't blame her, a human cracking jokes about vampires and blood-drinking so casually had to be strange. Ife was certainly rubbing off on me.
"That's a good point Ember," Damon commented. "But I was actually on another train of thought entirely."
"Oh?" asked Jasper, curious and regarding me with something that seemed like pride.
"Ember," asked Damon. "Would anyone you knew believe you if you said you've spent the last three months in a manor full of vampires?"
"Of course not!" I exclaimed. "They'd tell me I had mental problems and to go and get help!"
Damon popped a bit of bread into his mouth and smiled. "Exactly, the reason we would have nothing to fear from them is because they would never know or never believe what we are. They'd explain away stranger aspects of us that they noticed. Our cold skin? They'd just think we were the sort of people who just have cold hands. Never go out during the day? We work nights and have to use that time to sleep. Any creature with the ability to reason," said Damon, "I've found have an uncanny ability to ignore what is right before their eyes and substitute it with something that makes more sense to them."
I found myself wondering if he was speaking from experience. I said nothing but Mariyln, regarding us with a sort of gleam in her eye nodded. "I can see your point Damon, there is something to be said for that."
"I agree with them," Jasper commented. "I do think we need to exercise caution if we do decide to interact more with the human world, but Richard's proposal is ludicrous! We can't cut ourselves off entirely, it's just a bad idea in the long run. We do need humans, whether or not some of us want to admit that fact."
The three coven leaders continued to speak on the matter as the soup was cleared away and replaced with a salad. I nibbled at the greens, barely tasting them as I listened to them talk the finer points of Richard's proposal, from what I understood, he wanted to resort to being more covert when obtaining blood, resorting to theft if I was hearing correctly. The more they talked, the more I felt sure of my decision to challenge Marilyn the way I did. My gamble seemed to be paying off.
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