[Dark Ages] Dark Seeds

[mionassmaster.livejournal.com]

Baldwin would smile if there was another Cainite around to see it.  He was pleased with the way the great gathering had passed; the Cainites were a fearful bunch and would quickly heed the warnings of fire and death Baldwin spouted.  The mastery of the misdirection was that it wasn’t all smoke and mirrors, the fires were coming and so was the great change that would force itself on Cainite society.

 Baldwin stared into the mirror the Warlocks had “gifted” him with as he thought.  The mystical symbols that swam along its edges were both an aide to his thoughts and the seed of yet another thought process going through his mind.  With the beginnings of a shield against the turbulence forming around him, Baldwin’s mind turned to the knowledge he was sent here to acquire, the Tremere may or may not have lost their seers as they claim but they, like Baldwin himself, knew of the conflagration to come.  They horde whatever scraps they can find to try and find a path through the chaos, a path that Baldwin needed to secure for himself and his sire.  Ambrogino had trusted Baldwin to bring about a safe haven in England for his lineage and Baldwin was certain the Warlock’s held the key to this security.

 Either that or they would provide quality “materials” for Baldwin’s experiments….

Anger management

[sotongeistooc.livejournal.com]

The punchbag flew back on its chain, recoiling under the sheer force of the blow. Flexing and returning back as Newton demanded, again a fist crashed squarely into it, sending it bouncing in the other direction.

He continued to pound it with relentless, merciless ferocity. His knuckles were already raw from the barrage of punches he’d hurled, his shoulders aching from where he’d thrown in a combination of elbow hits and full-on barges. This may have been closer to rugby than Queensbury rules, but he knew the value of having a range of moves.

He was sweating profusely, wrapped up in layer upon layer of cumbersome, swealtering neoprene, with weights woven into the rubbery mesh at key points to make everything far more difficult than it needed to be. That was what practice was about, after all.

Finally out of breath, he caught the bag, and walked over to turn off his exercise track, silencing the Kanye West track filling the room. He took one look at his knuckles, and shook his head. There was no need, at all, to be so damn angry. Nor was there any reason to hate himself for being angry, either.

Science was cold, efficient, about equations and precise, rational thought. He knew that emotions were just nervous impulses, faulty synaptic transmissions of the neurotransmitters 5-HT, GABA, Noradrenaline and dopamine. He knew the surges through his body were triggered by cortisol release, starting a stress pathway to ensure his body was equipped for whatever it needed to do. He knew the film of tears in his eyes had pooled in a biological mistake that had somehow caused his species to cry when under intense negative emotion.

He knew science didn’t know a damn about how he felt.

He picked up a medicine ball, weighed it up for a few moments in his hands, and hurled it into the wall. It made a satisfying thud, its imprint forced into the plaster. Then he headed for a shower.