SL Update August 2013

 Please follow the characters here at the following Twitter IDs: 

My partner in life and justice: 
@Roman_Zimojic

My dear friend and former boss:
@EricNorthmanSVM

His Children and my friends
@Jason_S_SVM and
@pamiraravenscroft 

@EtherealGuard_   A powerful guardian inhabited with Ari Rowe Godrik's spirit

My diligent and clever assistant
@Anya_Crane_
and her new and worthy husband
@OsgarCrane

They did it... no holds barred a success for the Authority and there's nothing that the Chancellory can say otherwise. Roman's efforts to mainstream are proving successful internally even if beyond the compound walls we still have a device that's capable of draining vampires and humans both. 

With taking on Dark Fae as a ward and allowing her to use her talents for vampires Roman has succeeded in opening to doors to mainstreaming yet a third species.  That her new husband it Earth Fae and Shifter and also proved his mettle perhaps even regardng a fourth.  Frankly... I'm trying to stay open-minded, given my experience with vampires for the most part,  but I hope the Universe is done dropping supernatural surprises at us. I don't know how many divisions a mainstreaming Authority could help along. 

The man that Osgar and Anya brought back was named Harold, emphasis on WAS. It took weeks but we set him up with the Washington D.C. human F.B.I. and the Bureau of Supernatural Afffairs and the Witness Protection Program to create a new identity, one safe from  humans and supernaturals alike.  All of it was on the assumption that the would turn over the evidence we needed, testimony about his brother's history before dying in my hands but not by them.  Who was Harold now, after his release?  That would be telling. Sorry. 

His brother's name had been Esteban and he had been plagued with illnesses and likely PTSD coming back serving overseas. Harold had turned to small crimes to send his brother money to help him survive as well as he could.  The crimes, however, got bigger and bigger... until they got past Harold's abilities and ended him up where we found him, a border prison that was bad by even those standards.   

A few months after being locked up, however,  Esteban and Harold's money position's had reversed. Harold shared how the money had started flowing the opposite way. Esteban was sending him money instead, into a trust account that was waiting for him on release.  And he had promised to hire a lawyer for him from Austin, TX - one from the capital familiar with border prison cases, a private one, not a public defender.  Somehow Esteban had moved up in the financial world at about the same time the draining device's first fatalities were emerging.  

When his memory failed on the name of the lawyer who had contacted him a short time before Roman glamoured it from him and then glamoured in his new life, repairing motorcylces and being an advocate for vampire and human co-existence.  

The attorney that'd been retained was named Aaron Savidge.  One ABA database inquiry later I looked up at Roman and wondered how we were getting to Austin, via his very private airline or if I might dust off my skills and portal us there.  Given who Savidge was it was going to be worth the trip. My few enhanced-fae talents may not fade but there was a rustiness of disuse to be considered.

That, at least had gone well, one thing had not. Word had reached us that Ari Rowe Godrick had been killed in the line of duty, her unit decimated by a pack of weres involved in a crime syndicate.  It had been an organized hit. The flash had come up on the inter-agency alerts and I'd read it with a quiet horror of grief and respect.  

She'd been my first exposure to telepathy before my own rarely used talents were sparked, without that, I would have checked myself in somewhere the first time it happened when the source was me. 

In terms of her death... the Northman's were going to be devastated, to say nothing of Godric and whatever I could do to help I would. The only thing I was unable to do was move with them personally when the dealt with the situation. Politics and position. I considered doing it undercover but the risk to Roman, the Authority, and myself were too great.

I was unsurprised when the call from Eric came, requesting the police report from the Sheriff of the Area where she died.  A request and a few favors later... the thumb drive was in my hand. I met Eric at the Viking's Helm on a nicely busy night and wished him well. I'd read enough to know it was weres and to know it was weres involved with organized crime.  What happened next I was willing to let go, even knowing what would be.  I enforced vampire laws; I didn't obstruct them and weres remained pack-minded and uninterested in blending in our encounters so far.  Their choice. One of the things I quietly appreciated in the darker part of my pysche is that with vampire senses to deal with evidence... justice rarely lost its way. 

What made me worry was the look in Jason's eyes. Whatever they did to deal with this now, Eric, Pam and Jason, no matter how bloody or whatever the body count, I think he was about to learn that even an ultimate revenge was ultimately unfulfilling.  

SL update 20 June 2013 New Lives and a New Life

A mission... there's always a mission, or in this case a job. Powerful as they are in the day, vampires have that vulnerability at night that gives me job security. I just didn't know where that would take me.

I went on that date. I accompanied @Roman_Zimojic to the opening of @VikingsHelm and he was what I've come to expect from male vampires - charming, witty, inevitably experienced, and a marvelous conversationalist only... he was ... better at... far better.  As in I-felt-myself-dissolving-in-his-gaze better.   There are times when you want the world to play fair and times that it doesn't that you don't want it to... and I was experiencing one of them.

I've noticed one of the things that does regrettably happen to many (most) vampires is that they sometimes lose not only sunlight and the ability to affect a thermometer but often their sense of humor over the ages. Maybe they've heard all the jokes? I don't know. Humor has been such a survival mechanism for me that I can't imagine spending eternity not laughing about something, well, someone. Toasters don't pull many one liners.

Imagine my relief - and maybe that's what won me over - to find that Roman Zimojic smiled and laughed as well as he wore a designer suit and therefore... twice over suited me just fine.


The opening of @VikingsHelm ?  Off without a hitch, a place for human and supe alike to mingle mix, barter, make deals, throw peanuts, and spill their drinks and occasionally their cleavage.  I had arranged the security - insisting on a vampire saferoom and the electrification of the fence near the tree line. If humans wanted on the premises with wooden stakes, they'd have to bring their own through the front gate, no snapping them out of the garden walkway.

The other directive on my mind, the birth of the Northman twins.  Amazing... they'd managed it. I got to be a witness to the first vampire/human hybrid children in history. World  - let's welcome the two most wanted children to come into you.

I understand @SookieStack_SVM can talk to them, or emote, with them on some level. I am already imagining the secret smiles behind @EricNorthmanSVM 's broad back already as they grow.  But their birth meant my job was over, the AVL and @NanVFlanaganX had had their cats and kittens, and nothng had come of their dire warnings thankfully.  Maybe the world had had enough shocks that one more they tolerated very well and maybe we'd played it well enough to manage the blow. I like to think I helped. What happened next let me assume I did.

The AVL turned that 30 page contract I'd signed before leaving for Russia only to ultimately come back and not need the International title in it over to the Authority at Nan Flanagan's request. I made her show me the paperwork trail because it was coinciding just a bit with the trail of kisses Roman Zimojic was leaving down the goose-bumps on my neck.  I don't mind favors that have to do strictly with business moving me up the vampire ladder... but I don't want anyone on the outside thinking they came because someone wanted to see up my skirt.

The Vampire Authority had an office in Shreveport and here I was, blinking and staring at a corner office on the third floor (most of the rest of it was underground) on a wing of the building that gave me a direct line of sight to Roman's evening corner office.







Okay... I think he twisted a few arms on the corporate geography but with above ground offices in so little demand - I'll let that one slide.  He is THE AUTHORITY afterall.

                                                          The nook has a psychological advantage I like to use... It's informal, designed for less guarded conversations and still offers the potential that a vampire could still let you out the window if I gave the word...




As for the private sector geography - Well, that has two meanings and feel free to assume. My office has considerations for "human needs" a private bath that includes a black and gold private shower. And with all that warm water already flowing around there - it certainly deserved a proper second christening.

That said I couldn't live there... I moved out of the Northman home to Shreveport, to a luxury hotel with a rooftop pool, maid service provided by the Authority, equipped with secure wi-fi, a vampire safe office and bedroom, and a king-size bed someone else gets to make.

   

The finest restaurants, his luxury penthouse, even a classic drive-in that had somehow survived the modern age - I still look at them through the eyes of the beat cop that was tossing a hood over my car hood not long ago, trading foul-mouthed threats while I searched them for weapons. Well, since they're not much on dining, at least vampires generally don't give a damn which fork I might have wrongly used.
But it's about more than being the boss's girlfriend who does know what she's doing. Something's going on in Shreveport and bound to be going on elsewhere. The Authority was being surveilled and we caught one of the people involved, only to have him suicide, rudely dribbling his churning, cyanide-laden bodily fluids all over my hand as I dragged him down a wall.

So, where do we start? We have a fake utility company vehicle and a corpse that at least yielded some ID.  Our dead perp was a veteran, homeless and recruited from a shelter, via a program funded by an anonymous donor who has since vanished or likes to think they have. Our perp had a brother, in jail now in a town that borders the Mexican border with Texas, run by a pair of rubes who hate vampires but who have a weakness for Fae. What there is of it in my blood wasn't good enough but my secretary - she's a woman of hidden talents.

The Sheriff (HUMAN Sheriff) there fessed up a few things to her that he wouldn't to me - (assuming he wasn't mumbling at some other vampire-loving bitch...) but I want this investigation to take a little bit more of a direct approach. Consulting with Roman, we're sending @AnyaHareston in to get a few more answers. She's going to become a law student researching cases, on a working vacation with her significant other - @OsgarCrane .

The mission is a bit of a test for all of us... Anya's come up with a few surprises of her own that caused a flutter of concern around the Authoriy. She's a Fae, a  Dark Fae, and has only come to that realization herself.  She's finding out what she's capable of and her loyalty hasn't come into question but the Chancellory is nervous and in the back of my mind ... maybe so am I. It's not so much that I doubt Anya or Osgar themselves but what else might be waiting to surprise her? I know the extent of my Fae nature - a bit of mind-reading and ability to sense the portals that have apparently just been spinning around the world all the time and to open a few of them. What Fae I had in me... well, a witch named Miranda gave it an expected boost, so I know I've hit my limit - about Anya we're going to have to see.

Okay folks... COMPLEX reasons all of you who RP will be familiar with if you've RPd for a while- most unhappily some of them left unknown to me... but I discontinued updating here and am now resuming as I can.

In any case, my PM has also gone back to school and for that reason I have also been remiss in keeping up this blog. Recently - I saw a challenge posted on my TL by someone who's turned out to be very special to me and thought this was a perfect means by which to meet it.

I'm going to do that a bit early for Valentine's Day but I have to grab time and opportunity while I can and impulse sometimes deserves to be obeyed.

TO @EricNorthmanSVM, @SookieStack_SVM, @Jason_S_SVM, @Nicole_SVM and @Roman_Zimojic - thanks for patience and a new start...

THAT SAID...

A brief update to let you know where Cassie is so far ::::::::
__________________________________________________________________________
Having returned to Bon Temps from Russia for a lengthy time due to political upheavals and great dissatisfaction with her presence in the court, Cassie has found herself in the employ of the local vampire Sheriff, Eric Northman. He and his beautiful human wife have taken on the task of bringing into the world the first Human/Vampire hybrid children, a boy and a girl. Cassie has put in place protections for when Eric is at rest during the day as there are those who, as one would expect, object to their union much less to the children Sookie now carries.

In the midst of their joy and her happiness for them and the chance to be a part of history, Cassie receives a courier who informs her that due to his inability to guarantee her safety, Alexei is ending their relationship with all the best wishes in the world for her. And while she knows that she can deal with being in danger, Cassie knows that Alexei cannot, that the pressures of the court will be far less for him if she becomes in their eyes his dalliance with a human woman not even of noble blood. Resigned, Cassie has thrown herself into her work which now includes the security, internal and external, of a pub that is a new business venture for Eric Northman and none other than a vampire known as the Guardian, leader of The Authority itself who has the goal of promoting mainstreaming of supernaturals into society.

Assuming it's just the natural charm that vampires can't seem to stop themselves from exuding, Cassie smiles and nods at his compliments and spoken appreciations. She is after all, a rarity to vampires and humans alike, one of the very few humans who has known about vampires long before the Revelation; she knows that her silence has been appreciated and that she can offer insight into his mainstreaming goals. She meets with him with Eric Northman and then alone, impressed by an office that in many ways mirrored one of her own, barely above Spartan in its efficiency and looking all the more efficient because of that.  But what there was of the objects there, she could tell his time had been spent nurturing a taste for things of refinement. Nor, she had to admit, was she immune to his manner of addressing her and of listening to her input, all of it done, by this vampire who ruled The Authority, with sincere respect.

The call to cover some details for the opening of the pub was no surprise, of course. ... and ultimately, neither was Zimojic's request that she accompany him to it.... not in professional capacity.   The request gave her one final pause. She asked him to hold and went outside, out to where the newly awakened, limited power to portal had once allowed her access back to St. Petersburg, to Alexei Romanov, and made one last attempt to bridge the six thousand mile gap with a still-strange-to-her wave of her hand.  It opened for a moment, long enough to let a last wisp of frigid air from the Russian countryside slip through, a final caress, a last fluttering of memory of a cool face that had rested against her breasts. ... and then it closed, not of her volition but some other's, some powerful fae or witch in the palace's employ locking a door Cassie herself, with her trace of fae blood and its accidental enhancement, didn't understand and couldn't overcome.

Sighing once and gently, she slipped the phone back in her hand and found Roman Zimojic there, patiently waiting, offering a response of "Wonderful!" when she told him she was, in more ways than he knew at the moment, free to accompany him and not in a professional capacity...

TBC