The first time Birdie goes through Denver, it seems nice. The Prince, in particular, seems nice. One night, early on in her stay, they sit together for hours and talk -- about war, about the protests and the movements, about peace and music.
She doesn't usually get close to the high ranking Cams. It's bad business, especially when she's all dressed in lies about her clan and her reasons. But with Edward, he makes it easy enough, seems agreeable enough. He's got a council, and a band, and policies of rule that tickle the part of what might be left of her soul that cries out for things to be just and fair.
It isn't until she's left Denver and continued west that she considers he had manufactured the ease.
---
They aren't really much of a coterie, in practice. Birdie, Michael, Jessie, and Trent orbit each other casually in turns, all young by rights and easily lost in the shuffle of time and distance. Sometimes they catch up in one city or another. Now, they travel together, going east again after spending a few years wandering up and down the pacific coast. The other three know about Birdie's clan, have helped her get to a called chorus before and play the game well enough to not out her when they visit together.
Anarchs all, in some fashion. Or only in fashion -- it's difficult to tell sometimes what's a true ideologue and what's a pleasing looking patch to wear on one's jacket.
It's Birdie that suggests they stop in Denver for a while.
Michael is the one, on the first night, that suggests linking in with the local Anarchs.
Jessie catches wind of the way Denver has changed before Birdie can come to terms with the idea.
Trent, though, is the one that decides it's time to change Denver again.
For a few months there are meetings. Birdie sits in on them, uneasy but sympathetic. She's invited, too, to visit with Edward again. These visits make her nervous, more sympathetic in turn to the meetings on the other nights. Combined, they make her want to run into the Rockies rather than stay and see how things play out.
She doesn't get the chance because when it happens, then, it happens quickly.
One night, Birdie sees them all in turn, one after the other. Michael and Jessie and Trent, brief little moments, kisses on cheeks and tense shoulders.
The next night they're gone, and Edward Summons her to the Broadstreet.
---
He doesn't ask anything of her that first night beyond her company, sitting her down at his left hand to observe the night's proceedings by his side. His mood is lighter, though, in a way that's disconcerting.
It goes on like this, getting summoned every few nights and spending the rest looking for her coterie loosely strung. Duke is the one that suggests early on that they've just headed out of town, left her there since she's so amendable to how good Denver is for the kindred that live their unlives there. It is said with no small amount of cruel joy at seeing the way her smile falters.
---
Weeks pass before Birdie gets an invitation, the kind that isn't a summons but still can't be refused.
One of Edward's ghouls is waiting for her outside her temporary haven even before she rouses herself for the evening. Technically, she probably could have made an excuse and kept her distance -- it's not as if the ghoul could overpower her and force her into the car. Still...
Edward's haven was just outside of Denver proper. When Birdie is walked in, she sees:
The courtyard.
Shackles in the ground.
Jessie's boots kicked up against the wall.
Everything open to where there will, in a few hours, be sun.
---
He holds her hands in his when he makes his proposal, sitting across from her in his home, the detritus of hundreds of years of life around them that show what she thinks may be a love of music that could rival her own.
"You know what it's like," he says, cool and even, a thumb stroking back and forth over her own, "to want peace. I know you do. And I hope you understand that it is all I want here."
She can feel the slick honey of it in her mind and doesn't think to resist it. It melts so warmly with the Fugue.
"The Daughters have such gifts, Bridget. There is so much you can do here to help me. I am sorry that your friends cannot be a part of it, now, but stay. Be the Keeper of Elysium in Denver and let us make this whole city an Elysium for everyone that comes here for peace."
Birdie smiles, and god but that part of her soul wherever it is feels like it sings when she says, "Yes."
---
There is no more honey after that.
---
There is a house that he deigns to let her choose from a list of his holdings. Don Alonzo is the one that does the paperwork for it, smiles at her as he hands her the keys.
"Do not pinch your face like that, dear," he tells her. "The basement space is lovely on this one, and the rest will be taken care of for you, of course. Concern yourself with the Broadstreet and your duties, and smile a little. We do not wrinkle, you know, but it makes you look much lovelier."
And she smiles, because it isn't Don Alonzo that had made the bars for the cage. He's just helping her make a nest in it.
---
It's a few years in Denver before Birdie takes up with Jason. They bond easily over music. He likes that she guesses he's Jimi before he says it and doesn't make a big deal of it, and she likes...
Well. She likes the attention.
Laying together one evening, near sunrise, she tells him about all the places she's been. The ways she knows to go, between territories of Lupines and Kindred alike. Shows she'd played and how much she misses being in a car, cooped up in a backseat singing along to the radio with whoever it is she travels with.
"You could travel with me," she offers. Innocent and light in the dim next of her bed. "Bring your guitar, we'd make a hell of an act, don't you think?"
Jason, though, tenses. "Why would I want to go?"
For her part, Birdie doesn't catch this for what it is, doesn't notice the rising tension. The Fugue plays louder with hope. "You can't tell me playing second fiddle to Edward and his childer is satisfying for you."
"He's been good to me, over the years. They all have."
She stops to look at him. "There's more to it than that. I want more than that."
Jason lets the conversation die, waving away the concern and hope like cobwebs so he can dress and get back to his own haven before the sun rises.
---
He tells Edward, later, about what was said. Out of concern, on Jason's part, and the fine tuned needling Edward has become accustomed to doing to those in his circle to find out what he wants to know.
And what he doesn't want to know.
---
Birdie and Jason don't lay together anymore. She is still fond, and so is he, but the moment for it passes when Edward starts having his ghouls escort her from her home to the Broadstreet every night.
---
A year or so later, an old friend passes through Denver. Birdie and Quinn knew each other from the 80's, when she'd first set out to travel on her own. He ran a bar in Philadelphia, let her sing to help with everyone getting fed, easy and well.
She hesitates to let him know what's going on, at first, and maybe that was the mistake.
The more he sees, though, the more he notices, the more Edward keeps his eye on the both of them. It isn't long before he has Quinn in the courtyard, and then effectively exiled from the city entirely.
"He is still alive, Bridget," he tells Birdie after when he finds her sitting sullen in the green room, looking at the reflection of herself -- red-rimmed eyes and deep frown. "This is a delicate balance I'm keeping here. You know that."
---
Not long after that, she calls out for Lorelai.
And Lorelai comes, passionate and addled, but aware enough at first to make it seem like an easy visit. She doesn't like that Edward knows their clan when he meets her. She does not like that her Daughter seems so clipped and contained.
There are threats, those thinly veiled ones Kindred have so readily kept in their arsenals, but Edward doesn't consider them valid enough to worry. He lets her stay with Birdie, gives them the space inside Birdie's home and not much else in the rest of the city. Always a ghoul nearby, or another Kindred playing friend our tour guide or host, to keep tabs on what they do and where they go.
---
The night it goes to shit is cold and snowy.
A saving grace, in hindsight.
With every passing evening, Lorelai seems less and less herself. Hours will pass with her completely unaware of what goes on around her as she hums to the tune of the Fugue in her mind.
The Broadstreet crowd is thin, mostly Kindred and their ghouls, regulars hoping for a Kiss at the end of the night regardless of how difficult it will be for them to get home again when the night is through. Birdie is on stage, when it starts. Something in the backroom she doesn't see between Lorelai and the inner circle of Denver that overpowers all other sound.
A scream, first. Then the power goes out.
Lorelai wanders out into the empty streets, humming to herself, Birdie trailing behind. She doesn't understand what happened, but she knows to follow her Sire.
So, too, follow Duke and Edward. A few others, in Duke's security 'team,' such as it was.
The fight is hard, after, for Birdie to remember in great detail.
What she remembers most is Lorelai. Screaming, mostly, in ways she'd never seen before. She remembers flesh coming apart under the jackets of the others, under her own. Someone falling and not getting back up. Shadows coming from between buildings that held Lorelai still. And, finally, she remembers putting the stake -- a broken chair leg -- through her Sire's heart before more damage could be done.
---
"I believe," Edward tells her later in his own haven as she convalesces, "that you didn't know what she was going to do. I know what you value, Bridget, and that was not... That wasn't something you wanted to happen, was it?"
It isn't honey, anymore, but it is something languid and smooth and fear-tasting that has her saying, "No, I didn't-- I've never seen that before."
(He knows, immediately, that disposing of Lorelai entirely will earn him only Birdie's enmity for as long as they both walk the earth. So he decides, instead, to be kind. What he considers to be kind. As kind as taking her to his own home to heal, to feed only from his ghouls, to be under constant watch that is only protection from a certain point of view.)
"She won't meet the Final Death for the infraction. I will keep her safe, for you."
escalation
She doesn't usually get close to the high ranking Cams. It's bad business, especially when she's all dressed in lies about her clan and her reasons. But with Edward, he makes it easy enough, seems agreeable enough. He's got a council, and a band, and policies of rule that tickle the part of what might be left of her soul that cries out for things to be just and fair.
It isn't until she's left Denver and continued west that she considers he had manufactured the ease.
---
They aren't really much of a coterie, in practice. Birdie, Michael, Jessie, and Trent orbit each other casually in turns, all young by rights and easily lost in the shuffle of time and distance. Sometimes they catch up in one city or another. Now, they travel together, going east again after spending a few years wandering up and down the pacific coast. The other three know about Birdie's clan, have helped her get to a called chorus before and play the game well enough to not out her when they visit together.
Anarchs all, in some fashion. Or only in fashion -- it's difficult to tell sometimes what's a true ideologue and what's a pleasing looking patch to wear on one's jacket.
It's Birdie that suggests they stop in Denver for a while.
Michael is the one, on the first night, that suggests linking in with the local Anarchs.
Jessie catches wind of the way Denver has changed before Birdie can come to terms with the idea.
Trent, though, is the one that decides it's time to change Denver again.
For a few months there are meetings. Birdie sits in on them, uneasy but sympathetic. She's invited, too, to visit with Edward again. These visits make her nervous, more sympathetic in turn to the meetings on the other nights. Combined, they make her want to run into the Rockies rather than stay and see how things play out.
She doesn't get the chance because when it happens, then, it happens quickly.
One night, Birdie sees them all in turn, one after the other. Michael and Jessie and Trent, brief little moments, kisses on cheeks and tense shoulders.
The next night they're gone, and Edward Summons her to the Broadstreet.
---
He doesn't ask anything of her that first night beyond her company, sitting her down at his left hand to observe the night's proceedings by his side. His mood is lighter, though, in a way that's disconcerting.
It goes on like this, getting summoned every few nights and spending the rest looking for her coterie loosely strung. Duke is the one that suggests early on that they've just headed out of town, left her there since she's so amendable to how good Denver is for the kindred that live their unlives there. It is said with no small amount of cruel joy at seeing the way her smile falters.
---
Weeks pass before Birdie gets an invitation, the kind that isn't a summons but still can't be refused.
One of Edward's ghouls is waiting for her outside her temporary haven even before she rouses herself for the evening. Technically, she probably could have made an excuse and kept her distance -- it's not as if the ghoul could overpower her and force her into the car. Still...
Edward's haven was just outside of Denver proper. When Birdie is walked in, she sees:
The courtyard.
Shackles in the ground.
Jessie's boots kicked up against the wall.
Everything open to where there will, in a few hours, be sun.
---
He holds her hands in his when he makes his proposal, sitting across from her in his home, the detritus of hundreds of years of life around them that show what she thinks may be a love of music that could rival her own.
"You know what it's like," he says, cool and even, a thumb stroking back and forth over her own, "to want peace. I know you do. And I hope you understand that it is all I want here."
She can feel the slick honey of it in her mind and doesn't think to resist it. It melts so warmly with the Fugue.
"The Daughters have such gifts, Bridget. There is so much you can do here to help me. I am sorry that your friends cannot be a part of it, now, but stay. Be the Keeper of Elysium in Denver and let us make this whole city an Elysium for everyone that comes here for peace."
Birdie smiles, and god but that part of her soul wherever it is feels like it sings when she says, "Yes."
---
There is no more honey after that.
---
There is a house that he deigns to let her choose from a list of his holdings. Don Alonzo is the one that does the paperwork for it, smiles at her as he hands her the keys.
"Do not pinch your face like that, dear," he tells her. "The basement space is lovely on this one, and the rest will be taken care of for you, of course. Concern yourself with the Broadstreet and your duties, and smile a little. We do not wrinkle, you know, but it makes you look much lovelier."
And she smiles, because it isn't Don Alonzo that had made the bars for the cage. He's just helping her make a nest in it.
---
It's a few years in Denver before Birdie takes up with Jason. They bond easily over music. He likes that she guesses he's Jimi before he says it and doesn't make a big deal of it, and she likes...
Well. She likes the attention.
Laying together one evening, near sunrise, she tells him about all the places she's been. The ways she knows to go, between territories of Lupines and Kindred alike. Shows she'd played and how much she misses being in a car, cooped up in a backseat singing along to the radio with whoever it is she travels with.
"You could travel with me," she offers. Innocent and light in the dim next of her bed. "Bring your guitar, we'd make a hell of an act, don't you think?"
Jason, though, tenses. "Why would I want to go?"
For her part, Birdie doesn't catch this for what it is, doesn't notice the rising tension. The Fugue plays louder with hope. "You can't tell me playing second fiddle to Edward and his childer is satisfying for you."
"He's been good to me, over the years. They all have."
She stops to look at him. "There's more to it than that. I want more than that."
Jason lets the conversation die, waving away the concern and hope like cobwebs so he can dress and get back to his own haven before the sun rises.
---
He tells Edward, later, about what was said. Out of concern, on Jason's part, and the fine tuned needling Edward has become accustomed to doing to those in his circle to find out what he wants to know.
And what he doesn't want to know.
---
Birdie and Jason don't lay together anymore. She is still fond, and so is he, but the moment for it passes when Edward starts having his ghouls escort her from her home to the Broadstreet every night.
---
A year or so later, an old friend passes through Denver. Birdie and Quinn knew each other from the 80's, when she'd first set out to travel on her own. He ran a bar in Philadelphia, let her sing to help with everyone getting fed, easy and well.
She hesitates to let him know what's going on, at first, and maybe that was the mistake.
The more he sees, though, the more he notices, the more Edward keeps his eye on the both of them. It isn't long before he has Quinn in the courtyard, and then effectively exiled from the city entirely.
"He is still alive, Bridget," he tells Birdie after when he finds her sitting sullen in the green room, looking at the reflection of herself -- red-rimmed eyes and deep frown. "This is a delicate balance I'm keeping here. You know that."
---
Not long after that, she calls out for Lorelai.
And Lorelai comes, passionate and addled, but aware enough at first to make it seem like an easy visit. She doesn't like that Edward knows their clan when he meets her. She does not like that her Daughter seems so clipped and contained.
There are threats, those thinly veiled ones Kindred have so readily kept in their arsenals, but Edward doesn't consider them valid enough to worry. He lets her stay with Birdie, gives them the space inside Birdie's home and not much else in the rest of the city. Always a ghoul nearby, or another Kindred playing friend our tour guide or host, to keep tabs on what they do and where they go.
---
The night it goes to shit is cold and snowy.
A saving grace, in hindsight.
With every passing evening, Lorelai seems less and less herself. Hours will pass with her completely unaware of what goes on around her as she hums to the tune of the Fugue in her mind.
The Broadstreet crowd is thin, mostly Kindred and their ghouls, regulars hoping for a Kiss at the end of the night regardless of how difficult it will be for them to get home again when the night is through. Birdie is on stage, when it starts. Something in the backroom she doesn't see between Lorelai and the inner circle of Denver that overpowers all other sound.
A scream, first. Then the power goes out.
Lorelai wanders out into the empty streets, humming to herself, Birdie trailing behind. She doesn't understand what happened, but she knows to follow her Sire.
So, too, follow Duke and Edward. A few others, in Duke's security 'team,' such as it was.
The fight is hard, after, for Birdie to remember in great detail.
What she remembers most is Lorelai. Screaming, mostly, in ways she'd never seen before. She remembers flesh coming apart under the jackets of the others, under her own. Someone falling and not getting back up. Shadows coming from between buildings that held Lorelai still. And, finally, she remembers putting the stake -- a broken chair leg -- through her Sire's heart before more damage could be done.
---
"I believe," Edward tells her later in his own haven as she convalesces, "that you didn't know what she was going to do. I know what you value, Bridget, and that was not... That wasn't something you wanted to happen, was it?"
It isn't honey, anymore, but it is something languid and smooth and fear-tasting that has her saying, "No, I didn't-- I've never seen that before."
(He knows, immediately, that disposing of Lorelai entirely will earn him only Birdie's enmity for as long as they both walk the earth. So he decides, instead, to be kind. What he considers to be kind. As kind as taking her to his own home to heal, to feed only from his ghouls, to be under constant watch that is only protection from a certain point of view.)
"She won't meet the Final Death for the infraction. I will keep her safe, for you."
Another lock clicks into place.