Heartthrob

The question struck Esper James like a king hit from a prize fighter. It was so simple an inquiry, so innocent, so naive... but when Esper James thought on it, for even a second, she found there was no answer she could give. Nothing came up immediately, save for that same docile acceptance that the second-living gave to most facts of their existence.

Her mouth opened to respond, though nothing seemed to come. No words... no sound at all, even. Lips closed, then opened, then closed again, stammering soundlessly, wracking her brain for a proper answer. Why couldn't the second-living eat each other? Their meat tasted foul, so she had heard... Gave one horrible indigestion, to the point that even if you could choke down a mouthful, it would be up your throat in a second flat. She had never even considered trying, even at the depths of her most brutal cravings.

Was it because they were dead already? Or, dead-but-living? No, it couldn't be that - normal dead meat, from animals or first-living, sated their hunger. The blood and flesh of mortals was as succulent as the finest dinner... It was the ambrosia that distant gods had let fall to earth, simply for the cannibalistic post-humans to consume. That didn't exactly make it clear why things were the way they were, of course, but it was a truth as inherent and unquestionable as the sun holding dominion over the midday sky.

She began to tremble gently, the spot she had been put upon growing all the more imposing. Pressure pounded in her ears like a bass drum's beat, intensity growing with every second to pass... until Purity stepped in to respond in her stead. The pinkette spoke steadily, tone firm like a palisade wall, hoping to stand between this woman's questioning and her tender lover's sense of self. "Because something about the process of making a second-living makes them inedible to one another. I've, uh, I've seen one take a bite out of another, then paint the ground with their lunch almost instantly."

EJ snapped her head up to look at Purity, the matter-of-fact nature of her answer both shocking and aweing the ghoulish gal. Purity was right, of course, but EJ was more impressed that her soft, sweet girlfriend had become so stern with only a moment's notice. She let her mouth fall closed, the issue dropped from her brain. Purity was right; it was whatever they did to make them into second-living! A soft smile began to make its way over EJ's lips, spurred on by a tidal wave of relief.

The mother abbess was unmoved by the answer, face yet placid, body yet unmoving. There was a starkness to the contrast between the little blonde and the tall ebon-haired woman - one seemed so full of life, the other as lifeless as a statue, yet they were opposite, respectively, to their states of existence. EJ turned to Esthrielle, looking her over - she wasn't like the other nuns, was she? She wasn't so machinated that she seemed more like a drone than a person.

The mother abbess continued her questioning, then, eyes still locked on Esper James despite Purity putting forth the initial answer. "Hmm. That makes sense - and it would be problematic for Tsang if they had made your kind delectable to yourselves, given your ability to regenerate. It would cause societal stagnation. Once a person was dead, they would simply sit at home and consume themselves, re-grow their own meat, and continue. Fine. Next question." Finally, her gaze broke from EJ, snapping fluidly to Zofia instead.

Zofi looked back at the mother abbess, brows raised and eyes widened, but a single nod from her superior was enough to send Zofi back to looking at EJ. "Alright! So, you can't eat eachother, because it makes you puke. Good to know... Ah, uh, the next question is: what's it like to eat a person? Are you still in full control of yourself, or is it, ah... Like a drug?" A simpler question, though still fairly prying. EJ was almost a bit indignant to answer, given tonight's earlier proceedings, but... Fuck it. Better to placate them, right?

"I-It, uh...! It's like a drug, yeah, like you said. Your whole body gets really hot and warm, your muscles start to tense up really bad, your... Your jaw gets restless. It doesn't feel like you could ever have enough - like, eating a sizable amount makes you feel good and like you can stop, but that first taste is... It's powerful." She gulped, steeling herself before continuing, every memory she could muster of consumption flooding back into her brain.

Purity's blood... Est's blood... That cat's blood... That guard they had run into on the streets... Everything came back with a startling clarity that EJ wasn't really sure she was ready to delve into quite yet. That feeling of endless need, bottomless hunger, tickled at her chest even now. Even just thinking of it planted a seed of the same within her, though that earth was quickly salted so that nothing would, or could, grow. EJ cleared her throat before continuing, shutting her eyes and taking a deep breath first.

"It's like every good feeling you've ever had, all at once, turned to eleven. It's undeniable. You c-can... You can deny the cravings when you haven't had any for a while, but that's hard. It's... It's a lot like withdrawals from a drug. I've never done drugs, of course, but, like... I can imagine it's what morphine withdrawals are like, or heroin. Or cocaine. Or... meth? I dunno, I'm not really a drug girl..." She trailed off into silence, feeling she had said more than enough. It was also in large part out of desire to halt her own rambling. Oops.

Zofi nodded, smile disappearing to be replaced with thoughtfulness. A few moments passed as she thought on what EJ had said, face turning down to stare at the table's surface, the focus of her gaze visibly fixated upon something outside the realm of the physical. Finally, once she was done with whatever the hell she had been doing, she looked back up at EJ with a renewed smile. Its Cheshire glee was only a little bit off-putting to the ghoulette, though she still couldn't get over those fangs.

"Ok! So, it's some kind of stimulant and depressant in one, and momentarily halts higher mental function to spur the body onward with base instinctual urges! Huh, pretty neat..."

EJ nearly felt her jaw drop as Zofi said that last bit. She could feel the look Luca and Est were giving Zofi - the mother abbess's expression, didn't change, though a split-second twitch of the brow was more than enough to show that she had thoughts about the statement. Of all the things EJ had been expecting the Knights to call her, or anything about the second-living, 'pretty neat' wasn't one of them.

Zofia continued, then, seemingly unbothered by her colleagues' questioning glares. "Alright... So, super-stimulants just from eating another person. Weird, y'know? Like, what does it? There's nothing in a human being that should do that to you... And don't say adrenochrome like a tool! Adrenochrome was found to have no medical usage! It just makes your brain weird!" She preached as if to a hostile choir, though none in attendance seemed to have been raring to propose adrenochrome in the first place.

"Anyways... next question. You said you have cravings. Now, no judging, but I take it you haven't exactly eaten many people. Keeping that in mind, I doubt you've been... taking your 'meds', right?" She raised one brow, leaning forwards ever so slightly across the table. Esper James was emboldened a bit by Zofi's enthusiasm; there was something of a kindred spirit in the girl, or so the ghoulette felt. Something about how friendly Zofi was being was... refreshing. Not the interrogation of an enemy, but the inquiry of an enthusiast.

"Y-Yeah! I'm... I'm a fugitive from Tsang, for, uh, reasons, so I can't exactly go pick up my meds! I've actually been a lot better without them, I think... I've been thinking a lot about that recently, haha. I don't get the cravings as badly... I once bit Purity, haha, when I had been off my meds for a while. But nowadays, being off of them for a while? I feel..." Good. She wanted to say good. But as she considered it, thought about acknowledging her own state rather than just saying she didn't feel as bad, she felt her throat clog.

The pills had made her worse. Every day, for thirty years, she'd been taking those little pills. Every fucking day, she'd been choking down her prescription, just like every other second-living in the city. She'd always thought they'd been necessary to life itself, to exist as some semblance of a person. They'd always been a necessary evil, in her mind - a constant drain on her funds, a constant numbing of the self in favor of sanity. She couldn't even imagine the thousands of dollars worth of pills she'd bought in her unlife.

And for what? To play even further into Tsang's hands, maybe. To do exactly what they wanted... to be every bit the little corporate slave they wanted and needed from Vitus's citizens. To be beholden to a god in a little black pill, the only thing that kept one safe and sane... kept you out of the IRE sites, or worse, the crematoriums. Tsang gave you the medicine, so that Tsang could enforce your adherence to its consumption. Fuck. It made her sick, sick enough that her stomach roiled audibly.

Zofi nodded, smile growing wider as she did. It seemed that EJ was telling her exactly what she wanted to hear - telling her, from the lips of a real second-living, that being without the pills felt better than taking them. Zofia's eyes shut as she drew in another breath, pressing forth with the questioning.

"Perfect, perfect, EJ. That's great info, thank you! See, we... We're gonna try and get our hands on some of those pills, crack into 'em, see what they actually do. But! That's a convo for later. Next question: you and Purity and Est are, uh, entangled, right? Does your being second-living have any... effects on that?" Her smile became more of a grin, tinged with that sort of smug nature that comes from addressing the elephant in the room.

EJ could practically see Est's blush even without looking. Instead, she looked up to Purity - her most frequent partner for such things, and the first person she'd even engaged in those sorts of acts with. It didn't take a lot of brain power to put together what Zofia was asking, after all. She meant sex. Did EJ being a ghoul affect her sex life at all? Well, yes, but maybe not in the ways Zofi was expecting... Or hoping, as it were. Zofi seemed to be hoping for juicy details, not necessarily good or bad ones, EJ thought, with every question she asked.

EJ took a breath of her own straightening up in her seat. The emboldening, almost conspiratorial nature of Zofi's questioning had hyped her up, built her back to some semblance of confidence. It was none so much the brutal grilling she'd been expecting, more of a curious woman simply asking whatever gossip-mongering questions she had come to mind. EJ was happy to fill her in. "So! Funny you ask that, haha! Well, first off, all second-living are infertile. We're sort-of-alive, yeah, but being sort-of-alive means we can't really reproduce."

Purity's jaw tensed, suddenly spurred to interject, though she withheld whatever she wanted to say.

"So, without reproduction, we don't really worry about pregnancy. And, because of the regenerative nature of our bodies, I've never really heard of any second-living getting any STDs, you know? Not like you can get herpes when there's no living flesh to infect. Only, uh, sorta-living flesh. Oh, sorry, you mean my love live, specifically. Ahh..." A smirk drew itself across EJ's lips, like a sentient painting holding its own brush. Purity rolled her eyes and couldn't suppress her own begrudging smile; Est, who had been pretty rigid up until now, let out a shocked cascade of laughter.

"Well-ll-ll...~ I've never had any complaints, haha! There's a lot more biting than I think is usual, at least! Oh, uh, not 'breaking the skin' biting, more like... Uh, playful bites. Love bites, you know?" She finished there, welcoming Zofi to prod her further if she really wished. Purity and Est had started to wind down as well, this whole line of questioning setting them respectively at ease. However, after a moment of thought, Purity did interject - her smile disappearing, eyes going wide and alert.

"Oh, the reproduction thing? Tsang is working on that, actively. They have been for years. It's really hush-hush, behind-closed-doors type stuff, but... They're trying to figure out how to re-fertilize the second-living. It's a big expensive project." She cleared her throat after having said her piece, giving EJ a gentle squeeze. Zofi nodded at both women's answers, pursing her lips and shutting her eyes. After only a moment, though, she pursued in such a way that made Purity's jaw drop.

"So... how do you know that, Purity? I hadn't heard you were a Tsang operative, or even a resistance fighter, or anything like that. Anything you'd like to share with the class?" Zofi winked, lips spreading wide once again, steely fangs on display; in contrast to her own mirth, Purity's expression fell. Her face lost every drop of colour it once held, and her eyes were allowed to droop down to the table, her discomfort palpable. EJ spoke up on her lover's behalf - or at least, began to, before Est cut in.

"Not appropriate, Zofi. Purity's info is solid, I promise, but it's not a topic you should ask about. Next question?" The arm she had slung around EJ was drawn free, then, only to be slung further across her back so that Est could put it around Purity. Puri remained silent as the grave, staring into the table.

Zofi's own amusement faltered, and her expression turned solemn, even perhaps disconcerted. She shifted in her seat, back and forth, before clearing her throat loudly and performatively. "Yes, yes. Moving on. Sorry 'bout that. Next question, uh... So, being a ghoul, do you have any physical alterations other than the teeth? Can you do anything weird, Esper Jame- er, sorry, EJ?" Zofi put a smile back on, but it was as fake as her teeth. One could practically imagine a big, animated sweat drop forming and falling from her brow.

"...anything weird. Uh. Hmm. Other than the normal stuff, like survive otherwise lethal injuries, consume only meat and not suffer deficiencies, ignore bloodborne illness - or all illnesses, really - and display inhuman strength? No, not really." Initially, Zofia's enthusiasm only really bothered her because it was a bit creepy. Now, though? Now that she had (inadvertently) taken a swing at Purity? EJ was starting to get a little fed up with this questioning. Tonight had been more rough than it needed to be.

But then, something came to mind. Something that she herself couldn't do, at least not that she knew of... but someone else of great import could manage. Zofia's expression had fallen a measure more in the time it took for EJ to grab this memory and reel it back into her mind's eye, but the researcher's feelings were secondary to the blonde's need to at least give these women a fighting chance. "Uh...! Erm, it's not something I can do, but... I've, ah... I've seen a person turn into a monster."

Zofi's eyes, crestfallen as they were, snapped wide. The mother abbess, too, and even Luca - each of them seemed to have renewed their focus with only a moment's notice. Purity's own melancholy was wiped clean to look down quizzically at the ghoulette; Esthrielle was the only party present who didn't seem taken aback. She knew exactly what EJ was going to bring up. After all, she'd been there to experience it firsthand.

"Ahh..! My boss! My boss, Judas, she... One night, at her house, we were... I was asleep, and then I woke up alone in her bed, and there was a thumping from down the stairs... I ran to go see, and..." EJ gestured impotently at Esthrielle, as if to emphasize her point. "Est was there, and she and Judas were fighting. Est was, ah, doing her whole thing... but Judas, she..." The more of the story she told, the greater detail with which the memory was recalled.

Judas, hunched over, rearing back to strike - her body abnormal, muscles bulging at skin that threatened to tear at the seams, fingers now claws and teeth utterly monstrous. Teeth that, chillingly, reminded EJ now of her own. "She was... weird. Fucked up, like those guys you see in martial arts anime, except... Her teeth were super long and sharp, l-like mine, and her muscles were all... Twice their normal size, maybe. Probably more. She looked like a hairless werewolf."

The shock and awe of her initial assertation that she had seen a 'monster' only set deeper within the assembled listeners. Zofi almost looked excited by this new information; Luca had his brow furrowed in thought, hand over his mouth; the mother abbess looked disgusted. EJ turned to look up at Esthrielle, hoping she'd give some kind of backup... and wasn't left disappointed.

"Yeah... Bitch was like, doubled in height. Hair super long, arms super jacked, claws freakish and mean. She... She had me on the ropes, to tell the truth. Everything I threw at her, she could shrug off... Even silver powder, even flash-fire bombs... EJ's the only reason I'm even still alive." Her face was stoic, jaw set and locked once she finished, neck tense. It couldn't have been a good memory for her to relive, but for completely different reasons than for EJ.

The mother abbess now looked positively indignant, eyes wide once more, though now with fury where once had been disbelief. "Esthrielle, is that why you had us come pick you up in the industrial sector?! Why have we never heard of this up until now? Your repairs were extremely costly, and this information would have been-" She was silenced by a flash from Luca's eyes accompanied by a raised hand, which gestured for her to calm down.

Luca sighed deeply, shutting his eyelids and then drawing in a deep return breath to refill his lungs. "I am sure Esthrielle had her reasons, mother abbess. What is important is that this intel is available to us now, is it not? Esthrielle is alive. Esper James is alive. We now know that the second-living, or perhaps only some of them, possess metamorphic capabilities. Is that not enough?" His gaze dripped with distaste as it was sent towards the mother abbess; despite her obvious rage, she could only nod before averting her gaze, still sneering.

Luca turned then to Esper James, exasperation still etched into what few creases even found room to form on his picturesque face. "EJ. Thank you. I believe we should end our questioning here... We have learned much, and gained much. Under my authority, as doge of Venice, and as a feudal lord with stake in the church and its business here..." He let the pause linger in the air, a New Year's Eve ball waiting to drop. The mother abbess would have looked more pissed if it was possible, but her face was already getting so red that it seemed she may soon pop.

"...I would like to extend an offer of protection, and patronage, to you and your companions. Your knowledge of Vitus, and Tsang, and the second-living as a whole, is already proving a great boon. In addition, I am sure Zofia and her assistants would like to run additional tests, now, far exceeding her initial allotment." Zofi's face lit like a fucking watchtower beacon at that, signaling to all the kingdom that she was more than pleased by this idea. It was all the little freak could do not to clap her hands and squeal.

Luca continued, getting into his oratory stride. He had been speaking more in the past day or two than he had done in months - but the rust had been broken away, and his confidence flourished with his prose. "If you and your party would be willing to assist us further, allow us additional, potentially discomforting but undoubtedly essential testing, we would offer you shelter, food, and safety in turn. You would be free to leave whenever you would wish. Do you accept?"

EJ felt her heart about jump into her throat and choke her to another death.