Stray Serpentis

Salima Pierre is the foremost snake trainer in the modern night of Tacoma. If you're looking for an intimidating beast, or just love the scaley little things, you'll find plenty of advice and merchandise within her dim walls.

But, it is not that she is merely good at training snakes. She shares a kinship with them, one that it seems fewer and fewer people are able to understand each night. However, she was fortunate to have a meeting with one who just might.

"As a neonate, I was trained as a warrior." She spoke in a smokey personal study. "Not to seduce, but to strike, to be the viper in the grass. It was something I was taught to honor, and something I was very skilled at." She wrenched her hands on the knees of her pants, face mask making it harder to talk.

"But then...something happened. Even after we had moved, and began to weave into the Anarchs and the Camarilla, and donned our new name...something changed. Entire lessons vanished from my mind, and even what I clung onto...I couldn't perform! What little remained had fallen into the skills of other clans. And yet, when I spoke to my own about what had happened, they looked at me as if I was insane!"

The other member of this conversation took notes with a gaudy feather pen, gesturing for her to continue.

"They had all forgotten about Serpentis, forgotten about the strength and unique powers it gave us. Instead, I'm told that...that some base Toreador could begin to use the art I was trained from rebirth in! It's driven me mad for years now! I just want to know, where did it go? What happened? How can I remaster it!?"

"Is remastering truly something you must do?" An arrogant, mature voice spoke to her. "It's not too bad to try new things, no?"

"Look at me, arrogant half-kin!" She pulls down a sleeve hard enough to almost rip it, revealing an arm of thick scales. "I must hide myself each time I hunt! I feel the ache of my bones each and every night! Even if I adore the powers I possess, to not be in control is a pain I cannot handle!"

She slowly stands, clearly annoyed. "I was told a learned man like yourself would understand. Clearly, I was mistaken."

The arrogant man chuckles. "Forgive me, I was merely offering an alternative. Yes, I do know what you struggle with. I recall the gifts of Serpentis." He stands, allowing the light to hit his face.

Matured, with a smattering of chin fuzz, with messy, wavy black hair pulled back into a ponytail, capping off his appearance with a monocle. "In fact, I believe I have a tome on the matter."

"Do not toy with me Chanokh!" Salima marches to meet them.

"My dear lady, Chanokh Von Grimmelshausen does not toy! Jest, needle, play, perhaps, but never toy! But, while I sympathize with your plight, and do know something of its cause, we are in the business of give and take."

"Stop lecturing me as if I am a neonate and get to the point, Caitiff!" Her patience was wearing impossibly thin.

His eyes sharpen. He always hated it when people spat out that last part like it was some insult. But, a veneer of class and elegance did wonders to polish the mood. "Please, have a seat."

Begrudgingly, both parties did just that.

"The change seems to have happened around the same time as the phenomenon known as The Beckoning, where Elders have been compelled to vanish in the night." Chanokh began.

"I have heard whispers of such things," Salima leaned forward in interest. "Have they not gone to the Middle East for some mysterious campaign?"

"Such is the popular beat on the street, but I don't put much weight into things I cannot personally verify. What I can verify, is that around the same time, many skills of Kindred were...well let's just say they were getting shuffled around a bit. At first, it was magic, with many thaumaturgic paths becoming moot, or much harder to master. Then, it was arcane disciplines, with Blood Sorcery absorbing Quietus, or what we know as Oblivion being born of Necromancy and Obduration. Then, came the individual paths of power single clans had created."

"This is happening to others as well? Why does no one remember!?"

"That part's a mystery to me too, my lady. I have found some rare individuals, myself and present company included, who recall the days past when these skills were in their original states, but everyone else? It's fiction! New Kindred, of course, know not what the heyday held for us, but even Elders and those with the advantage of age but not generation fall under this spell."

"But we remember! Surely there must be a way to remind them, or to reclaim what has been lost?"

Chanokh chuckles, making the eyes of the woman turn sharp in frustration once more. "If there is, my lady, we shall discuss it once a fair bargain has been made. I am also more than willing to offer you my tome on the art of Serpentis, for what it may help. Honestly, I'm being quite generous! Take it as a sign of my sympathy for your plight." His words did not betray his genuineness, but his smirk did that just fine.

Salima lets out a 'tsk' in protest, but sits back in her seat, back straight. "Fine then, tell me what you would ask of me. I take it you do not have a serpent you wish for me to train?"

"Ohoho, nothing so droll my fair lady! I want you to use your old skills. The ones you are oh-so prideful of."

"I want you to assassinate someone for me." His tone did not waver or shift as he decreed that, but it made Salima's spine tingle all the same.

"Who is my target to be? Who has earned the ire of such a passive scholar?" Her mask was beginning to wet at the edges of her mouth.

"I would hardly call myself passive," he mutters, rolling his eyes. "But, you are set to assassinate one Dolores Paige. She is a Toreador, a former Harpy who still holds some meager influence, and has recently decided to put that towards putting targets on the backs of fellow Caitiff. I would see that tap shut off."

"So, for your personal payment, you'd ask me to work for your "clan"? How synchronous of you. Tell me, do you preach for the so-called Clan Destined as well?"

He cannot resist letting out a full guffaw at that question. "Ah, my dear lady, you are quite the comedian! But no, I am not a part of those theatric blowhards!" He said as Salima successfully stifled the snicker that would have snaked from her. "No, I pride myself on my own merits and my merits alone. That's why I honor my fate as Caitiff, I have no clan or bloodline influence to pay credit to! But, I have given you your mission and promised you your payment. Do you find it worthy?"

There is a moment of consideration. Just a moment. 

"It will be done." Both parties grinned in satisfaction.

It wasn't long before Salima had arrived at her destination: some generic nightclub tucked away in a Federal Way street, with dim violet and red lighting to accent the colors of lust it wished to infuse the audience with. 

It's the perfect hiding hole for a former Harpy. Of course, as a Harpy was less a hired position and more of a social title, it makes sense the ever-flippant Toreador would go through them like coffee filters. While Salima was more of a warrior than a schemer, even she felt pride knowing that the Setite's brand of seduction was leagues more refined and intrinsic than the flash-paper attention of the Roses.

But, passing the throngs of people, and weaving down dark back hallways, it did bubble up old memories. Or, perhaps it was merely the net that caught them, as the previous conversation shook them from the riverbed of her mind. 

In that tucked-away temple in Egypt, even as a simple Ghoul, she was trained to fight and master the gifts of their blood. Her master, a bitter but righteous woman, drilled the necessity into her mind.

"Many of our clan twist the mind, and draw more towards the glory of Set." She preached with fervor. "And yet, a quick tongue and charming smile can only serve so much. We must be the strength that rises when subterfuge fails."

Between aching spars and deadly fights to the injury, these lessons would be drilled in. "We have skills unique from our clan. We must master them to become the true defenders and warriors of our people. No matter what other Kindred might say once you take these powers on, and even no matter what your own clan will tell you, the art of we warriors is a sacred, necessary thing. Respect it as such."

It was training that Salima treasured even now. But it burned her dead heart to know that, for anyone other than her, any of the words she knew would fall on deaf ears. Perhaps this would be the start of greater education, to know why so few carried the memories of their old talents. But that would have to wait.

There was a job to do. 

Salima waited outside the private room Dolores was set to be in, enjoying herself a proper meal. She would've loved to let her specially trained babies do the trick but against Kindred? She didn't need to risk their precious little scales. No, she'd be more than enough to pluck this rose.

They were making noises inside, such disgusting mewls that Salima could barely resist retching at the sound. But, they did provide cover enough for her to quietly slip into the room, as darkness covered the inside. But the darkness would not save her quarry, as her eyes went from olive green to emerald, and her pupils became slits.

Dolores is there, rapturously underneath some bleach-blonde nobody in a cheap business casual outfit. Perhaps killing her is a mercy, then? From a special strap in the back of her shirt, a sharpened blade drops into Salima's hand. It'll be over all too quickly, as she gets closer, and swings down at an angle prized to slash them both. 

She isn't expecting Dolores to look her right in the eye, crimson eyes shining with a similar supernatural gleam to Salima's own. Suddenly, without preparation or warning, her body locks up, and even her arms to a halt before any flesh is cut. 

"T-This is!" Salima struggles to blurt. 

"W-What the-" the man asks in shock before he finds the back of his neck shoved onto Salima's blade.

"Nice quality, shame I can't stick around to admire it." Dolores says, keeping her eyes locked onto a very confused Salima. Then, Dolores pulls her former fling's head forward just a little bit, enough to make blood spray off of the blade, and directly into Salima's eyes. Despite being a hardened warrior, having blood shoot into forced-open eyes is never going to be an easy sensation.

While the paralysis is broken by their sight breaking, Salima still stumbled backward, dazed, as Dolores rushes for the door. It doesn't take her long to recover, but Dolores is apparently no stranger to running, as she's already made it far down the hall and back onto the main floor.

But that's no matter.

The Toreador knows how to run. She had to run from Seattle, from Bremerton, even from Tacoma. She can stay away from all sorts of assassins and hunters, this shadowy freak is just another in a long line of attempts.

As she makes her way into a series of back alleys, trying to shake off her assailant from the obvious path of retreat, she makes just one mistake. She stops running.

Salima knows how to run too. She's had a whole slew of relocations to run from, a "perk" of being an independent clan. Getting to the back exit of the club and watching her path from above was child's play. Now, as Dolores unknowingly walked backward into the doorway she had already propped herself into, the time came for the snake to strike.

With one slash of the blade, her tendons are severed, and Salima kicks her forward onto the ground of the dark alleyway. While the flesh is quick to reform, Dolores clearly knows what to prioritize, the ex-harpy is shaken and scared, frantically scrambling to get away from her assailant.

"W-Wait! Listen, you don't want to do this! I-I got friends! I got allies! O-Or, if that doesn't matter much to you, I got money! Resources, cash, favors! I-I can trade in them all!" She tried to bargain. But with each second looking at Salima's eyes, she knew they weren't getting anywhere. It was the gaze of a single-minded woman, one with no hesitation present in her body.

She tries to activate the power of her eyes once more, but Salima is prepared for it this time and has long since been trained to resist it. Dolores, on the other hand, cannot do the same when Salima returns the favor.

"What I want from you right now is simple," Salima begins, pointing her blade at the Toreador. "How did you learn to use this ability?" the words, dripping equally in animosity and intrigue, slithered from behind her facemask.

"W-What ab-ability?"

"Do not be coy with me! The Eyes of The Serpent! You locked my own body a moment ago, the same sensation you feel now! Tell me, how do you know it!?" Desperation began to form.

"I-I don't know? I've always been able to do it!"

There was silence as the gaze bore into Dolores.

"Always?"

A nervous nod was permitted.

"How long is that?"

"I-It's hard to keep track...decades?"

Before the shift. Before everything changed. 

"Tell me how."

"W-What?"

"HOW!? Decades ago it was not something your puny clan could ever hope to grasp! So how do you now have it!? Who taught you!? Who did you steal it from!?" She was growing increasingly feral.

The harpy was beginning to cry, red streaking from her eyes. "I-I really don't know...p-please, don't hurt me!"

More silence, as Salima understands the implications. "Very well. I accept you do not remember."

"R-Really?"

"Of course. That just leaves one option." She takes off her face mask, revealing a fang-filled maw extending to her cheekbones, with bloody saliva forming at the sides. "I will rip the answers from your blood."

Dolores doesn't even get the chance to protest before the maw is upon her throat, and her screams are choked out by the night.

"My, oh, my! You are quite the efficient one, Lady Salima." Chanokh praised, looking at the polaroid photos of the incident. He then happily tossed them into a fire.

"I trust this is satisfactory?" She asks, already tired of him.

"Yes, yes, I've already had an assistant go to fetch your journal. But, I'm curious."

She braced herself.

"Dear Ms. Paige seemed to be quite...well...drained. Do you have a reason for such a drastic action?"

His eyes were boring into her, scanning every inch of her body for her response. But, she would only give him a cold, practiced, calm position. "It merely felt like the right step to take."

He smirks, knowing exactly the threads he laid upon the cat's path to tug upon.

"I believe this is the start of a beautiful partnership, my lady of stalwart Serpentis."