New Year's @ the Strip!

[birthright_npc]

The festivities on the Las Vegas strip were your basic police nightmare. A mile-long stretch of the boulevard was blocked off to traffic so that revelers could stagger drunkenly down the middle of the street. Food trucks and street vendors sold pizza, cheese steaks, popcorn, cotton candy, and plastic cups full of beer. Some sold pre-mixed margaritas and daiquiris. At each major intersection, a stage showcased performers and music pumped from speakers mounted on the light posts.

It didn't seem to matter that it was December in the desert. There was plenty of body heat to go around.

At midnight, several large screens would broadcast a countdown before fireworks lit the sky.

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[ghargreaves]

"Rather smart thinking," he told the young man, looking around at the crowd. "In my day it used to be a tree, or lamp post. Didn't have these confounded monstrosities churning out plastic food," he said, tapping the wall of the van with the end of his cane, as if berating it for its very existence.

"Can you see where there might be some sort of stage, or whatever? A central point? Where the midnight count might be called?" he asked.

[daniel_stacy]

"MGM Grand," Daniel said. "That way." After pointing southward on the boulevard, he emptied the cup and pushed himself off the edge of the truck. His feet came to rest a comfortable distance from the other man's.

Daniel idly rubbed his stomach, where the sandwich had settled into an uncomfortable lump.

"What's that like?" he asked, suddenly struck by the fact that he hadn't spoken to a person of this age bracket since he was turned. "Watching things change so much? I'm being serious. I'm not trying to be an ass.'

[ghargreaves]

Gerald looked the young man up and down, considering the question before answering. He started strolling again, leaving the young man to decide for himself if he wished to tag along and listen. "There has been a great deal to observe and see change, when you consider that my boyhood was spent in far different pursuits than today's young lads."

He looked across to see the young man fall into step beside him, before continuing. "But what's it like to watch it change?" he repeated, considering the actual question. "At first you don't even notice it. It's just all too close. But as you get older you start to look for the familiar and it disappears to be replaced with the new, and then you realise that what you are thinking is different to what many others around you are thinking, what you expect is no longer expected by others, and the world is moving in a direction that isn't the one it used to be taking."

He stopped walking and turned to look at the man beside him. "And what made you ask that?" he asked him. "Most young men would ask about what has changed, how is it different, but you asked what it's like to see the change. That's different."

[daniel_stacy]

“Eh…” Daniel raised his shoulders in a prolonged shrug. “Curious, I guess. I uh… I’ve got a grandpa. He’s much older than you, of course. Anyway, he’s getting on in years. Can’t be easy.”

The vampire had no such grandfather, but it had only recently occurred to him that he might make it past his first decade. He’d live forever, a geriatric in a twenty-something body, and watch everyone around him die. Daniel didn’t know how he felt about that.

Strolling the street fair

[ghargreaves]

"It's as easy as one wants it to be," Gerald replied, his cane tapping on the ground at the end of the swing as he walked again. "Yes, the agility isn't quite the same, and the ailments are more common for those who suffer them, but it takes very little effort. And if you keep people around who are young, or at least young at heart, you can sometimes forget," he said, pausing for a moment and looking at the young man. "Except of course when those young remind you of their agility by sitting atop a van," he told him with a sly grin.

Re: Strolling the street fair

[daniel_stacy]

“Oh don’t feel bad. I got a boost.” Daniel smiled. He wasn’t altogether sure why he was walking with the guy, but why not? As they made progress towards the main stage, he had to conclude he liked the cane. Much classier than a walker with tennis balls stuck on the legs, anyway. “They say there’s more people in the city for New Year’s than any other time of the year.”

Re: Strolling the street fair

[ghargreaves]

"Do they?" Gerald replied, proceeding again, cane tapping lightly on the pavement as they walked. "Which would of course lead one to the summation that if anyone wanted to cause mischief and mayhem among the masses, this would be the time and place to do it. Or if they were looking for a crowd to disappear into, this would be the perfect place, would it not?" he mused, curious as to why the young man was accompanying him, but nonetheless happy for the company. He did in fact believe very much in what he had said, that keeping the company of the young did help to keep in touch with the ways and language of youth of the day.

"Tell me, what is a handsome young chap such as yourself doing talking with an old fossil such as myself, when you have the greatest pick of many a nubile young partner of whichever persuasion to choose from?"

Re: Strolling the street fair

[daniel_stacy]

“Well, I’ve already got a nubile partner,” Daniel said reasonably. “At least until she tells me otherwise.” He tipped his head to allow for part two of the admission. “Of course, I have no idea where she is on New Year’s Eve, which is probably a bad sign, but I’m not the type of guy to make assumptions.”

He gestured across the way.

“What about you? You’re a dapper guy, plus you’ve got the accent working for you. Where’s your classy lady friend?”

Re: Strolling the street fair

[ghargreaves]

Gerald smiled as he glanced across at the young man. "My classy lady, as you say, has departed this world, and gone with our daughter to take care of Mother." The pain was no longer what it was, even at times like this, as the passage of the years had given the wounds time to heal. Instead it just left an emptiness that nothing could fill, ever. Even the anger and torment had gone, as there was none to blame, none from whom to seek answers, or against whom to have retribution. It had been the elements, and conditions on the night. Black ice, a corner, and a stone wall. His wife and their daughter both were taken from him in a simple car accident.

All the years he'd spent working with the Council to aid the young Chosen in their development to face the evils and demons, and none of it had mattered a damn when it came to keeping his wife and daughter safe from the vagaries of the weather, and road conditions. His fervour for his role had died a little that night, and in its place had come the a different purpose.

He turned and started walking again.

Re: Strolling the street fair

[daniel_stacy]

"Man. Sorry to hear that." Daniel turned his face away so the man wouldn't see him cringe. He scratched his eyebrow. He'd stumbled into sensitive territory. Daniel wasn't good at managing emotions when he was alive. Now it was worse. "Here's hoping the next world's better than this one."

Daniel wondered where his soul had gotten off to when he died. The soul left, the demon set up shop, but still, shouldn't he know? Shouldn't he feel whether it wound up in heaven or hell?

Re: Strolling the street fair

[ghargreaves]

"Indeed," Gerald agreed as they approached the edge of the crowd that had gathered around the stage where technicians were fussing around in the background, a large screen showing a combination of nothing, a large clock face, and various snippets of other 'Las Vegas-y' types of displays, one of them stopping to stare up at it, telling another what was happening, before returning to look at the projector positioned to project onto the large white display.

"Especially for things like that," he added, indicating the screen with his cane.