villa del refugio [varn/open]

"Well..." The times in history that she had seen. Not her favorite subject, really. She spent much of her time avoiding the thought of all of the things she'd witnessed and experienced. Still, she was in a good enough mood, now that she had some tea (not that that mattered, you know, but it was the thought and act that counted, right?) and good company and she was on better terms with the cat. Perhaps she could help him out. It only made sense that he'd be curious, given who and what he was... though she figured Sleepers would have been curious as well. "Where to start?"

Starting at her birth felt a little personal, for her tastes, but she was born right before what is commonly known as the Black Death struck and killed pretty much everyone she knew and people across her country, her continent. They were old memories, but they were still there. She rubbed a little at her temples, leaning heavily on the table.

"What do you know of the Black Death?"

She sighed, now moving her arms for a second to stretch them above her head, squinting for a second at the work that it was. She eventually settled her arms again, placing them on the table. There was little here in the manner of etiquette, but hey, she was among friends. Sort of. Plus, it was story time. As the storyteller she was allowed to relax, though her stretching movements were more out of trying to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts than any real stretching of her muscles.

"It all happened very fast, you see," she started. "We called it the 'Great Pestilence' back then. Dad got sick first, but Mother died before him." She tried to say these things like they were just fact, like she had gotten over it centuries ago, people die sometimes and you can't help it, but when it came down to it, there were reasons that she didn't think about it often. "I think he brought it in from the fields. He never forgave himself for the next two days he was alive." She paused again. "It was really gross. There were these big, wart like things... and their fingers started turning black." She eyed her own fingernails placed delicately on the tips of her fingers, painted black for the occasion. Ironic. "I got it, too. It wasn't fun." Glossing over it wasn't what he wanted, but was all she wanted to do. That was okay, right?

"I got turned before I died, but everyone else wasn't as lucky." She made a face. "My sire was a good doctor, but there was nothing he could do. Life was hard for people for a long time because of it. Everyone got really distant... and clean. At least, we told them to... It was hard to convince people it was germs and not, you know, Jews." Those poor heebs. The butt of every joke. "I didn't get too involved in the politics of it all. We spent most of our time traveling the outskirts of the territory." She hoped this wasn't like, information overload, or that she wasn't wording things stupidly.

She chose to answer both their questions at once, looking off into the distance. "We did end up visiting Italy, but that wasn't until later." What she failed to mention was that it was later in, you know, vampire time. So... decades later. "We roamed the edge of the, you know, 'kingdom' of England at the time." She was starting to get bored with this line of talk, but she could deal with it. "No one I knew back then survived, besides my doctor." She carefully analyzed her nails again, wanting to avoid too much talk about R, but not wanting to make it too obvious, either.

"Why do you ask, though?" No, it was obvious. "Was your family in Italy at the time?" There was a moment, and she paused. She didn't know if aging worked differently for mages or whatever. With magic, you could make yourself look way young, right? That was sort of what she did, herself. "How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?" She didn't want to offend him, but it was only fair for her to know just what she was dealing with here.

"Fifty cat years?" She asked, raising a brow at Ellen flirtatiously. She was finding it easier to talk to the cat, honestly. Not that he was hard to talk to, no, it was just... She felt a sort of cameraderie with the cat, after all this. Maybe it was just the fact that she was cute and fuzzy. That was probably it. She wished she could take a form like that. Maybe with magic...! But no, that was for a different time.

She waved away his apparant worries abotu vampire hunters. "Rom... My sire, he did, long before I came along. He'd made some friends in Italy by the time he... 'had' me, so we were safe." And boring, she added mentally. Italy was home of the finer things, and R. had always been a fan of them. "Would your family have been the vampire hunters in question?"

That was good to know. He'd said as much earlier, but still. A bunch of other Varnocks, running around hunting vampires... How droll. She understood the need, though. It was population control. She knew, perhaps better than others of her 'species', that occasionally, vampires just got out of hand. She hated to bring it up, even in her head, but she wondered if that was what ought to be done with the situation with V. Sure, they were causing some changes, some of them good, but...

Even with all her whining about things always staying the same, there was a comfort in that.

"Ah, exciting times." She smiled a little smile, kicking her legs. "The Renaissance," she said, a bit wistfully. "Italy was a beautiful place, even after all those tragedies of the plague." She always felt pretentious talking about those times, especially after the surge of all these art students recently and the 'spiritual' Sleepers who claimed do have been there during that time, but it still held a tender place in her heart... Even if it was a dirty time.

If there was one thing that Mildred loved, it was soap.

"Colonization was fun, too," she confided, "Even if it was dangerous for everyone, including vampires." An acquaintance of hers had been 'lost at sea', so to speak. She shuddered at the thought of drifting around, down at the bottom of the ocean, going crazier and crazier for want of blood. That was the stuff nightmares were made of. "But world history is a little heavy for tea time talk."

"Truly, it was." She knew how lucky she was, really. It was a good time for everyone but Jews. Then again, it never seemed to be a good time for them anyway. Shame, that. "As for what I want to talk about..." She looked around, before scooting her seat out. It took her a moment of standing up, stretching a leg, and smoothing out her skirt again, but she looked around at the books surrounding her.

"I have a couple questions..." She started, slowly. "About magic." She turned to Varnock, a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. "If you don't mind."

She swallowed hard. She wasn't quite sure how to word it. R's opinion on such matters was largely negative. As such, she was woefully uninformed about such matters. How things worked, what exactly she was doing, what others were doing... Still, this seemed like the perfect place.

"I have this sort of... thing I can do." She said, a little nervous. "If it's a Sleeper, I can... I don't know exactly how I do it. Or even what I'm doing. I feel like I need to look a certain way to them... and I don't know. I don't say anything to make it happen, but.." That was how magic usually worked, right? Expecto Patronum or whatever? She felt like a dork even talking about it. She didn't even want to mention the other thing that happened, that seemed too much like old gypsy stuff or whatever.

"Am I making any sense?"