Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

13th of November 2006 A.D.

The memory of the promise you had made to your mother floats in your mind, if there were ever a moment that promise would apply to it is one... though more for her peace of mind than any hope of secrecy. Those with the senses to feel that will know what transpired, even if you do not say it aloud. Better, you reason that the lesser scions of the court know the truth, so that everyone knows where you stand.

"I killed it."

They were all already looking up at you, hard not to draped in brass flame and broken idols, but all of a sudden eyes widen, other gazes sharpen. thoughts pass behind the eyes of the White Court like the wheels of steel behind stain-glass windows. What you had shown they had seen before, but with vampires as with most folk it looks like seeing is believing. Out of all of them you are most interested in the woman who had called you here tonight, the one you had after a manner served.

At first sight Lara seems satisfied, cats and blows of cream come to mind, or maybe bowls of blood, you are pretty sure the furry little menaces would not mind others. But beneath the bright smile, the extravagant bow with which she apologizes for the 'unpleasantness' there is something else, not just uneasiness, you would question her sanity if she were not at least a little uneasy, you certainly are, but shock and beneath that a gleam of even brighter interest.

Oh how much more useful you had become as the tables are set aright, the bodies carried out and another round of food and drink is carried out of the kitchen, but she does not approach the matter at once, instead she is on her phone, giving a account to her father, seeming deference in her tone.

"Elisa secured the Skavis manse in Boston just as you planned father, it has been recovered intact though the auspices of loyal subjects formerly in House Skavis employ and the other operations are also going to plan..." A blunter way to present that she has all the blackmail House Skavis did than she would prefer you are sure, but for the most part you are concerned with gulping down some no doubt rare white wine so as to keep your stomach from rebelling.

"What's the matter?" Lydia asks, worried. "Did he get you?"

"No, I'll tell you later," you answer curtly. Or maybe I won't, you add silently. Daughter of a god or not she's better off not knowing what passed for Raith family dynamics.

It seems Lara planned to make an example of House Skavis, no more than that. As the White King rises to his feet once more and resumes his speech to a less numerous far more subdued gathering he speaks of the darkness that comes before the dawn, of the wages of treachery, but also of loyalty to ones patron, about the need to 'pool assets' as the world becomes more dangerous and the newfound decision of House Raith to extend a financial lifeline to lesser families of the sort Athanasius had recruited from.

Suddenly you realize what all this is reminding you of, a history lesson last year, all but drowned out in the anticipation of summer-to-be: The Age of Absolutism, the consolidation of royal power, as the king took advantage of religious and civil strife to increase his ascendancy from the First Among Equals to titles grander and more baroque: His Most Catholic Majesty the Sun King... The first comes to mind for its seeming presumption the second from recalling an anecdote about how Louis the Fourteenth used to actually play Apollo in court plays in his youth. It has been funny at the time, but now as you watch the Constantine Raith dancing to his daughter's tune hand out old posts and responsibilities as well as new made ones to those vampires to had aided in the short vicious fight or at least stayed neutral, it all seems to click.

No one is going to be so naive as to think this had not been planned from the start, not with other Raith daughters prepared to to seize the assets of the traitors. Speaking of those assets...

"Miss Carpenter, I had heard that you are an lover of the arts including a love of motion pictures," the White King says, motioning with a oister spoon in what he probably imagines to be an affable manner. "Would you find use and joy in what is left of my late nephew's work. Red Star Productions I heard it is called."

The movie studio that released Harvest when none of the big boys would touch it, claiming that it was too campy for an R rating or two R rated for camp. But not just that it had released Cemetery Road, the Devil Knocks Thrice and Seven Black Candles, all of them cult classics. It is a bribe, you would have to be blind not to notice it... it's a damn good bribe though. You don't want the people working at it to lose their jobs just because 'Darby Crane' turned out to be a murderous vampire. On the other hand do you want another business, one where you killed the last owner? On the third... well not hand but some kind of limb it would be a legitimate business to add to your assets so you look less like you are just laundering diamonds.

Do you take the 'White King's', in truth Lara's bribe?

[] Yes (Obtain Red Star Productions)

[] No, too many complications

[] Write in

OOC: The studio does not itself give a dot of resources because those are tenfold increases and it is not worth that much, but it would make getting another dot easier on a narrative level.