Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3!

Part 2!

Its been twelve hours since my meeting with the fledgling and from what I’ve been hearing she has managed to restrain herself well enough, having only a minor incident during late afternoon that didn’t result in any casualties. But now as I sat down to do the paperwork that Adam has passed on from the Chief Inspector I could clearly hear every word that was exchanged between Joshua and Miss Scarlett as they made their way around the grounds to fix the waterlogged fountain in the back garden.

“Is he always like that?” she asked as she walked side by side to Joshua , carrying some of the tools he would need. Though nowhere near, I could hear every word that was exchanged on the windswept walk.

“Is who? Oh, you mean your talk with Leon?”  I was genuinely curious as to what she though, probably young enough not to have heard any stories that seem to circle around the household yet.

“Yeah, he just seems, I don’t know, a cross between a pompous ass and shit scary.” Even I laughed at that, that was something I haven’t heard before, I continued scanning the reports of missing persons and morgue exchanges.

“Really? How so? And don’t worry, you don’t have to whisper.” He assured her with ease as they walked.

“Well one minute he’s asking me for details how I was turned, the next he’s biting my head off for asking how old he is!” I should hope not, though the description would have to be remembered for next time.

“Let me explain then, Leon’s kinda the Godfather to most of us, Father to some-“

“Like Simone.” She interrupted.

“Like Simone, and if you walked up to an ordinary elderly gentleman would you ask for his age in order to show him respect?” There was a moment of silence, in which I assumed she shook her head.

“Exactly, with Vampires you have to look at what they have achieved rather than how long they lived, though with Leon it’s a little bit of both I suppose. As to your turning, I only assume that he has some ulterior motive to knowing, its kinda a personal thing to everyone as you can probably guess, and everyone has a right to keep it to themselves.”  They set their tools down at the edge of the fountain and sat down on the edge.

“Take me for example, I wasn’t turned by Leon but I’m still kept around because I’m useful, not to say that if I wasn’t I’d be kicked out.”

“But that’s not what he told me! He told me that I have to be good at something in order to be accepted in, how come you get to stay?” he laughed at this accusation.

“The first part is always the hardest, you’ll see. You have to work your way into a community as tightly knit as this, I was probably even worse off than you are when Leon took me in and trained me, ever since then I’ve been working round the manor and grounds as something of a handyman. If I even needed help I knew I’d be able to get it from anyone in and around here, especially the big guy at the top.” Taking out the tools they slowly set off to work on the fountain, still talking in the meantime.

“How were you worse off?... If you don’t mind me asking that is.” She started her quizzing once more.

“See, that’s all you have to do. You really have to work on your privacy skills, and the more you open up to people, the more they’ll open up to you… Except Simone, she’ll say anything and everything so watch out for that.”  That earned a chuckle as they worked.

“Anyway, it was around, oh man, around 190 years ago now, but I worked as a merchant in the port, selling last-minute items to sailors going in and out of England. Big ol’ ships would arrive every couple of days before setting off with a new load to take off to some colony or other, I didn’t really care. But one day, a fancy man arrived with a haul of slaves to ship off-“