[network] @Mnemosyne; video; night 227; history will judge us [open]

[bookofnope]

[Beckett starts the feed sitting huddled in a corner against a wall that's been burned a featureless black. He's not wearing his tinted glasses, and both his look and voice are flatly composed, distant.]

I am going to start recording everything. Simply leave this thing on at all times. We are losing too much information to patchy and inaccurate records in a way that is simply inexcusable considering the means we have access to. I strongly recommend that you all do the same. [He pauses, then nods half to himself.] If nothing else then for those who will come after us. Eventually.

[So optimistic, Beckett.]

Do let me know if you would like to receive regular transmissions of my records. And if you have, and are willing to use the means to put some of them on SD cards that may be preserved in the event of lost access to our iteration of the network. There is... a certain comfort in the thought of posterity, in my experience. Such as it is.

[Such as it is. He wrinkles his nose at the thought, and puts the tablet aside, though the recording keeps running. After a bit of time, he picks it up again and adds a text message, along with an attached file: TheBookOfNod.txt]

The file I am attaching is the complete text of the Book of Nod: the mytho-historic principle document of the Cainites, namely, the vampires of my world, transcribed from memory. I doubt this is of particular interest to anyone, but my physical copy was recently destroyed, and as far as I am aware, that was the last copy in existence. My purpose here is thus its preservation as a text. I am the last record of my Kindred. Let something remain.



[OOC: I didn't want to directly link one but if anyone's interested for whatever reason it's actually really easy to google up an online copy of Vampire the Masquerade's Book of Nod. I'm sorry it's so painfully 90s.]

Comments

[warriorscribe]

[He has listened to him in a way few can, and felt able to share his own burdens in return. For Enoch, that is a friend.]

Yes, it is. It is free will, and it is worthwhile. "We could have done better" is how improvement begins.

[A bright, earnest smile that promises he knows he's talking to someone who seems to have no room to improve, just let him keep talking.]

I would be glad to preserve this as the last of your stories, along with whatever I can add of you, but, Beckett - do you not think there is still room to grow for your kind? Were you the last of anything but a vampire, I would not say so, but vampires only need the one. Surely, if you could find escape to some other world if death awaits you in your own, you would find those willing to join you. And surely, not every world's creator will see what you are as a curse, whether this is true or not. With your dedication to the truth and the lessons that may be learned, you could be better.

[bookofnope]

[How improvement begins - if there is anyone left to improve. He'd spoken to Jenna Cross and her Thinbloods about rebuilding, but doesn't think he'd meant that. Just his desperate reach for - something like a legacy, considering all the rest of his efforts have failed. Enoch's proposal is absurd and at the same time oddly tantalizing. What would his kind be, if guided by -

Surely not by him, in his frankly wretched person. But perhaps by his histories, painstakingly gathered for so long...]

Beckett, father of vampires. [He can't approach it with anything but wry amusement, yet, one corner of his mouth curling up.] That hardly sounds very impressive. I'd make a terrible figure of Freudian imagination. Perhaps... if it were not a curse to the ones I would give it to.

[warriorscribe]

[The half smile is more than he expected (though he wasn't quite sure what Beckett's reaction would be, if he was honest), and it brings a sort of...serenity? As if tension he didn't realize he held had been freed. A sort of relief, possibly, though, again, in response to what threat avoided?

Really, though, he isn't going to question it much. Because it sounds like he has taken some measure of hope from it, wry as that smile of his was, and that matters more than anything. When he can find none for himself, the least he can do is find it for other people, friends especially.]

People that would thrive in your conditions exist, I'm sure. People who would welcome it. There would be no need to guess, if they could come to you. Societies exist that would benefit from a group of vampires living among them, and if it were openly so, they could protect you in turn.

[That seemed to be what their Caine wanted, in fact, if these words were his at all. But those words came from a position of power over mortal humans that Enoch felt was a hindrance to what could be. But he held back from voicing that thought. Beckett might already think the same, after all.]

[bookofnope]

[He does see it, versed as he is in the lore of the book and its more esoteric interpretations - and esoteric it is, the idea of a human society with vampires for protectors, teachers, guides. Common enough rhetoric, to be sure, but in actuality the rarest of practices. He knows that too well. He is, after all, a historian.

A historian... he'd said it before. Yes. It feels oddly right now.

Something is taking hold in him, he realizes as Enoch speaks. Something new. And that's a frightening experience for any Kindred. He tucks it into the very back of his mind, where it might grow uninterrupted. Perhaps if it survives there long enough he'll let it out again, to see how it copes with the light.]

You know, Enoch. [His tone is oddly wistful, suddenly. Different from before. The look he gives his friend goes deep.] I remember we had a bet going about how people here would turn on each other sooner or later. I think I even won it. But... sometimes, I think I see why God chose you. I understand it more than I expected I could.

->private

[warriorscribe]

[The change in his tone and the sincerity of his gaze catch Enoch off guard. He's used to many things from this unusual friend he's made, this man of the shadows, and this is not one of them. It's moving, when he realizes. He's earned this from the depths of that cynicism and bitterness, somehow. If he's overwhelmed Beckett at times with this friendship, it should be known it goes both ways. The first thing he finds it in him to respond to is the old bet.]

I do owe you something to drink, don't I?

[His warm fondness is tinged slightly bitter. He tries not to think of the awfulness that brought it about. His own traveling companion, the first man he'd called "brother" in centuries, and he was holding one of the floods of violence in the palm of his hand. Clayton had meant no harm, he was sure, but he could have prevented it, perhaps.

He shoves it away, because clearly whatever he has done for Beckett is significant for the vampire, it would be wrong for him to wallow in guilt now - how can he, when Beckett is looking at and speaking to him like this? He can't ignore his friend.]

I- Your words flatter me. After reading this- well...

[Private]

[He abruptly realizes he's veering into potentially sensitive territory and makes the feed private.]

After reading this book, I think I understand you a little more, too, your questions of Heaven and God's will. I don't know how well I've helped you, if I have, but I hope I have. There is no better gift I could hope to give a friend than one of faith, joy, or hope, carried in the heart.