( levy tran / female / she/her ) — THAO NGUYEN has been living in Port Leiry for THEIR WHOLE LIFE. They currently work as a TATTOO ARTIST/BODY MODDER/PIERCER, and are 43 years old. No one is sure if they’re actually a VAMPIRE or if they’re connected to KANEMARU. They tend to be quite DIFFICULT and HESITANT, but can also be OBSERVANT and PROTECTIVE.— ( dani / gmt / she/her / 29 / none )
BIOGRAPHY.
Before Skinner (B.S.):
Art school called to her; in fact, it seemed like everything was going her way, and she was going to get the hell out of dodge. She hadn't had a bad life growing up, not really, but Thao had to work hard for everything. Growing up in the foster system, she knew she had been incredibly lucky. Yes, there were a few bad homes before she was finally adopted at the age of seven, but she found her forever home with loving and supportive parents. Port Leiry was her home, and it hadn't done her wrong in life, yet it still felt so suffocating. She had been accepted into the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was ready to finally start the rest of her life.
Thao didn't ever find out how long he had watched her before deciding she was what he needed, but as soon as she started to excel at school and her chosen career to fund her way through school, he forced his way into her life and took away any choice in the matter.
After Skinner (A.S.):
He compelled her to drop out, to focus solely on her tattoo artist career, but only for his needs. Before long, she was performing piercings and then body modifications. Thao was immensely skilled, a clear natural, but without the compulsion, she never would have been what she became. Soon seen as his right-hand man, completing his every bidding and encouraging others to do the same whenever they were in her chair.
As she grew older, there were a lot of things she missed out on: her thirtieth birthday, her parents' funerals, her life, but she didn't care. The only thing she was compelled to care about was Skinner, the work he was doing, and the work she was doing for him.
To this day, she believes he had her parents killed. The one distraction, the one tie to her humanity that she had left. It posed a threat to him, and Skinner didn't like that, or the prospect of somehow losing her and her work. The compulsion had doubled down after her parents' death; she never let herself grieve.
When her end was near and her death was coming, she felt relieved. That relief turned into terror as vampire blood was forced into her mouth before hands wrapped around her throat. Thao had begged, pleaded, until the very end. Until she awoke with a dead heart in her chest and a shame that ran so deep she wasn't sure she'd ever recover.
She did the only thing she knew how to do and set up her own tattoo studio, free from Skinner's cold, dead grasp. Inksignia was a way to make up for her past mistakes, even those she had no control over. She still listed all of her services, but they would be to willing and wanting participants only, and she also offers removals. They are free of charge for the list of Skinner's victims who are fortunate enough to still be alive.
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"Good friends - old friends. Old vampires, you'll meet them, I'm sure." Oksana doesn't waste time, though, trucking along even through the conversation and introductions. "Thao." She tests the pronunciation on her tongue, in her accent, and nods with a bright, wide smile. Her mind is not on silly names any longer (of friends old or new), and instead on satiating the hunger that starts to grow in her throat.
But she supposes conversation is important for friends.
She stop-starts in the middle of walking as she realizes this and continues talking as she moves, "Where was your home before this? Why live in backwater dock town? Is home a person?" She glances back, only once, but most of her gaze is focused on finding anyone out in this frozen waste.
In the distance, she sees someone (or perhaps, some thing - wouldn't that be fun? she thinks it'd be interesting to taste of a creature.) and slows her rapid pace. "Ah. Prey, here we are."
In all honesty, Thao hoped that she wouldn't meet them. Old vampires made her anxiety rise - she was never sure how old Skinner was, but she thought old. It made her stomach turn.
Thao followed the other vampire, copying her movements almost exactly in case that was an important part of the hunt. The question caught her off guard, even though she had practiced this before. "Home was... well, home was here and there. Wherever life took me. Now, home is here. At least here I know there are other people like me. I didn't want to run away from here when I was new. Just in case I lost all control." At least the end of it was the truth, rather than some version of it she told people when she didn't want to mention Skinner.
She slowed when Oksana did, her eyes narrowed in on the prey. "I'll just uh, watch first?" Thao murmured to the other in suggestion, her eyes moving from the prey to the predator.
"Watch out, a lot of privileges come with me being your fave." She laughs it out, joking - but once Thao finishes, she stands and moves over to the mirror, looking it over. It's stunning, and she lets Thao know. "I love it. Adore it, even. It's perfect as is."
She turns back with a wide grin, ignoring the ache in her face as she does so. "Trust, though. It'll be a good time - really chill." She's not the type to go party at Soleil, and she definitely doesn't find a lot of fun in terrorizing people. If anything, she'll just show Thao the hotspots, where to hang, where to chitchat, the best shows.
Turning back, she goes for her purse, "What do I owe you - don't say nothing, you're at least going to get a tip."
"Privileges? Oh, that's just a damn shame." She teased in return, though she waited anxiously for Lara's reaction to the tattoo. "Good, I'm glad! Aftercare for a vamp tattoo is a little different. It'll heal quickly, but avoid anything that dulls magic whilst it does; otherwise, it'll heal all the way and, well, disappear." Thao advised, hoping that she was clear in the explanation. She had been told exactly how the magic in each worked, but had memorised only the essentials she would need to tell clients. As soon as it was healed, the magic was sealed in the tattoo, and all would be fine, but if the magic didn't have time to settle in before getting drained by something, then the tattoo could disappear.
"N--" Thao started, though Lara's words had her huffing and stopping in her tracks, "Fine. Forty bucks." It was enough to cover the ink and other supplies she'd used, and considering she'd managed to make a new friend, that's all she really cared about.
Aelita catches the compliment, and repays it with a smile and another wink. "Who is? Been here a handful of months and it's turned into a ghost town."
Literally, in some cases.
"I'm getting ready to pack up; won't take more than a few minutes - you know anywhere to get a night-cap? Could warm us up."
She doesn't have much to do anyways, and it's too late for anything terribly kid-friendly, and if she knows one thing about this town so far, it's that you can tell a lot about somebody by where they go for night-life.
"It wasn't like that before the storm, but yeah, people either stay home or go from home to their favourite business and back again, I've noticed," Thao answered with a small smile, knowing that she had been doing the exact same.
She thought for a moment, recalling where she would go for stuff like that before the storm, but maybe now... now she'd suggest somewhere different. "I met a woman who works at a nice-sounding place, Satin Caberet. We could go there?" Thao suggested, "I'm sure it'll have the heat turned up too."
Freddie, still heaving, still doubled over, slowly turns her face up to her rescuer. There's a quiet moment (save for her huffing and puffing), and then she turns her nose inwards - sniff. Wow, she must be nose-blind to herself because all she smells is pepperoni and pizza-grease.
"Uh-" the words stutter out of her. "I'm sorta new? Around here?"
She hadn't planned on staying, but something fucked is happening here, and it seems like people can't leave.
"To all this." Freddie adds, motioning between the two of them. "I don't know shit from fuck."
"Oh, wow..." Thao murmured, not particularly wanting to be the one to break the news of everything else that existed in their world. It wasn't her place - if she were a wolf, then she should have a pack, or at least some wolf friends, right? "You know others like you? Run in a pack, or..?"
It was a lot to take in, all of it, but it would be better coming from someone who could be there for Freddie, to walk her through everything.
"Look I can't... I can't be the one to take you through all this stuff. I'm not the right person, or the right species, and I'm new myself." She wasn't ready to take someone under her wing, especially with someone that she couldn't possibly imagine everything the wolf was going through, or would go through.
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Oksana's lips form into a pout. She'd known other vampires turned out of vengeance, just as she'd known other vampires born out of a misplace sense of love, or even pure hatred. With the thousands of vampires in the world, there surely would be a variety of ways they came to be. Her thoughts turn to her own turning, and she can't place a descriptor on why she is here and now, a hundred or so years later, after living through histories most would simply forget.
Alexei was not a good man, nor was he a good sire, or a good father figure - but she loved him and his flaws all the same. She feels her mind about to fracture as she dips her toe into those memories, but pulls herself back to the words Thao is saying, plastering that smile back on her face after faltering for simply a moment.
She claps her hands together, delighted by the idea of a vampire who doesn't know how to hunt. "Oh, wonderful! Just wonderful. We will be friends. I will introduce you to Frankie and Caska, both very good people to have in your corner." She slides around, and slips her arm through the crook of Thao's elbow, pulling her along.
"Don't you worry about having the skills, you can simply observe. But first - we must find someone to quench my thirst. Did I say my name? My mind - it is so.." She makes a vague gesture near her head. "I am Oksana Raevskii of the Karnsteins, Port Leiry is not my home - but I think it will be soon enough."
"Frankie and Caska?" She questioned, having not heard the names before. Thao knew that she wasn't the best people person; she hadn't been great at making friends in her life before Skinner, and even less so once she was turned. She was nervous enough with Oksana, with Lana, and with Birdie, but maybe she could be prepared for more people after this outing with Oksana.
Before she knows it, Thao is being pulled along, following the woman with a nervous smile. "Observe? Okay, yeah, I can do that." It made her nervous, the woman seeming even just slightly like she didn't know her own mind, but she knew well enough that she could get the hell out of dodge if she had to. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Oksana. I'm Thao. Also, not my home, but I suppose it is now."
She had nowhere else to go, nothing to go back to; she had dreamed of running from anywhere that Skinner had touched, but the list grew so long that she lost count of the places she would stay away from. Port Leiry was the place for her, at least for the time being. She wanted to make a go of things with Birdie and Kanemaru, and she'd finally started up her business. It was home, for the time being.
"Uh, sure... -wait, what?" Freddie starts, but before that, she's overtaken by a weird feeling of weightlessness, and the city's rushing by - she's not really sure how long it's happening for before everything lurches to a stop, and she feels like she's just gotten brake-checked on the highway.
"H'ooooaugh god," she says once her feet touch the ground, breath puffing out of her mouth as she hunches over - pretty sure she's about to hork Pizza all over the sidewalk. She's not even sure where they are, or what direction work is in - but she doesn't smell the werewolf anymore through the clarifying cold... that has to be plus, right?
Wait. Her eyes bug wide.
"What the hell was that?!" She says, turning back towards her rescuer, but it's all breathless, shouting whispers.
"Easy there," Thao tried to comfort, a hand on the other's shoulder as she hunched over. The first time she'd run like that, she thought she was going to empty the contents of her stomach, too. She wouldn't hold it against Freddie if that's what happened.
At the question, she took a step backwards, hands raised, "You still smell like wolf, and that's not from tussling the one in the freezer. Which means you know only one thing could move that fast, and you also know I saved your life, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't freak out and go all primal and bite me." Thao half-teased, though it masked the truth. The last thing she wanted was to have to run from another wolf to avoid being bitten.
"You know who that was? Know if they're likely to lose their shit once they wake up?"
"Cold night, for a walk," she says in a conspiratorial tone, as if the cold isn't exactly why she's out here, too. Though it's not quite just the cold she thinks, spinning to a seat on a nearby bench as she puts the guards on her skates. At being called mesmerizing, she looks up, apples of her cheeks raised into a wide smile. It takes a great bit of personal strength not to reply with I know, but she manages.
"Thank you, I try,"
She stands, pulling a heavy hooded jacket over her attire, thankful for its sudden burst of downy warmth as she hugs herself to start gaining heat, puffs of air escaping her lips. "Almost forever," she says.
Skating is a quiet kind of celebrity - in the right circles, she's a phenomenon, and in others, she's an utter nobody; it's useful in many ways, and she never takes not going recognized to heart. "Chilly night for a walk!" She observes - maybe this woman lives nearby. "I'm new in town, still figuring out the good spots."
"Gotta say, I like the cold. Don't get me wrong, the summer clothes are cuter, but I like the brisk air and the way it wakes you up like nothing else does." She felt like it put things into perspective, and whilst the cold no longer posed a danger to her, even this cold was still brisk enough on her icy skin.
"I can tell, yet you make it look effortless." Thao complimented with a smile, clearing snow off a bench and taking a seat, looking out over the ice.
"I'm not that new to town, and even I'm still doing that. I haven't been getting out as much as I should have." She admitted with a chuckle, though there was a sadness to it that she tried to hide. Thao needed to get out there, make some friends of all varieties, she knew that, but it was easier said than done. She trusted enough to make acquaintances and be friendly with people, but actually making friends was a different thing entirely.
"Yeah," she says, a brittle smile couching a nod of her chin. "-probably."
Birdie dwells, wondering what to do or say next; Nsilo's ghost haunts the corners of her mind - the Vampire had held such a calm grip over everything, seemingly always known what to do. It's a blessing that this mantle'd fallen on her shoulders at such an odd, quiet moment, but Bridget can't help but feel like something is brewing beneath the odd quiet of the city - whether it's something for their clan, or every vampire, or the city itself.
"Same your way," she says. "Uh... if I'm honest? I'm kind of just... holding the fort down - but you seem to have a pretty fair grip on it all..." she gestures to nothing in particular. Birdie's introduction to this world had been quick and violent and whirlwind, and even though Thao stands here the younger vampire, it's hard for Birdie not to feel a little intimidated by the idea that she's been around all of this a fraction of the time her fledging has.
A nervous laugh. Birdie turns to the door, having barely made it five steps into the shop, but she turns back before she makes a full exit; "Even if you just... you know - need somebody to yell at or... yell to, or whatever - I..." she swallows, thickly, nervously, "I wasn't in my right mind, when I did what I did. I... wasn't myself - or really, I was the worst parts of myself. I'm sorry." Another round of apologizing, as if it might make it more real - to either of them.
She think to stay longer, but isn't sure she wants to, or if she's terribly welcome - but he air is, at least somewhat, cleared.
The younger vampire nodded at the words that came from her maker; it seemed understandable. She'd just been through a loss, the whole clan had - it had to be hard after that. Kanemaru had changed in a moment, a new leader at the helm who had to deal with the loss as well as try to ensure everything ran smoothly still. It would be a difficult time for Birdie, for all those with half a say in the going on's of the clan.
Thao bit at her lower lip, eyes lowering to the floor as she sucked in a breath she didn't need, "You don't need to tell me that, I can tell that you weren't. I could tell that you weren't. I was sweet revenge - on him or me, I was never sure, but revenge nevertheless. The act of someone pushed over the edge." If she had that amount of power, those difficult feelings, her emotions off... Thao could definitely see it happening.
"You're welcome here." She called out to the other as Birdie headed to the door. "Truly." There was a lot to work through still, but they couldn't do that if they were tiptoeing around one another. Thao didn't want to become what Birdie had been, and she didn't want to see that Birdie again; she wasn't going to hold a grudge or keep her emotions bottled up. If they had anything to work through, they could do so.
Lara nearly laughs - it's not something she, personally, wanted to get involved in either. Yet, truly, it felt like the vampire existence was plagued by the idea of weird whether you wanted it or not. The Lomidze were their own brand of it - everyday life for others wasn't something they usually got involved in. Though, she truly had no idea if they were still beefing with them (clan-wise) or not.
Thao wipes her skin of excess ink, and Lara chances a glance down towards the work. It does burn, but it's nothing bad - and the art itself looks wonderful. There's a moment where she thinks about what Birdie's reaction will be, but she pulls herself to the present before getting too lost in that.
"I'm totally good, babes. Trust, I've felt and been through much, much worse." She lets out a laugh, and watches Thao continue with the color and highlights. "Next time we might, I'm definitely taking you on a night out on the town. No funny business, just getting you going with all the hotspots and landmarks. Not taking no for an answer."
"A night on the town?" Thao repeated, more a question to herself than to Lana. When was the last time she had done that? It had to be pre-Skinner, before she was ripped from her normal life. It sounded like fun, and something she would enjoy with Lana. Trust didn't come easily with Thao anymore, and she still felt like everyone had an ulterior motive, but... It was less with Lana.
"Sure, once you're all healed up and you have a spare night, I'll let you take me out for the night. Can't say no to an offer like that from my new favourite client, hm?" The fledgling chuckled, adding a few more finishing touches to the tattoo before wiping it over again. "So, what do you think? Want anything added or anything like that?"
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Oksana's eyes grow wide - she'd been close to the answer, but still a ways off. Afraid to stop. She'd heard that before, of course. It was not a new phenomenon around the younger variety of undead. She finds herself pacing in a tight circle as this young lady speaks, tapping her fingertip on her lower lip. Think, think. Not about hunters or flames or revenge. No, present. Here, now.
Clasping her hands behind her back, she turns back towards Thao, bright smile back on her features - though no less curious. "Knowing when to stop is practice. Your sire left you all on your lonesome?" She did not have that experience, but she knew others who had. It was silly of vampires to leave their fledglings without a guiding hand. Perhaps she can give this one's sire a strict talking to.
But the more she thinks, the more she feels the cogs and gears shift and turn in her mind - always planning, always searching. "You sound like you've had.. bad experiences." The smile does not fade.
"Come hunt with me." She repeats the initial offer, and holds her hand up as if to say 'no harm, no foul', "I can give you some pointers, but you can use your sippy cup. I am just.." Oksana pauses, looks to the sky as if thinking. "..looking for new friends. Yes?"
"I was turned out of vengeance, not desire." Thao replied, confirming that she had been left to navigate her new normal alone. She had woken up in that building alone, memories that Skinner had taken from her coming back in violent flashes as she struggled to escape whilst hiding from the sun and tearing the masses to pieces. She hadn't succeeded very well at that last part for long.
She mulls over the offer, chewing on her lower lip as she thinks about all the ways that it could go wrong. But the chance to actually learn something and see that they didn't need to kill when they fed from the source was too intriguing to pass up. Thao hesitates, but nods in agreement.
"Me too. Looking for friends, I mean. Sure, I can come hunt with you. But it's not something I've really done since those first nights. I'm not sure I know how to hunt." Instincts had taken over before, and it was those same instincts she'd been fighting and shoving down ever since.
Birdie stands down - a million excuse bubbling like a boiling broth in her mind; she wasn't herself, she'd found a way to shut out empathy and pity and remorse more than any detached coping she'd done during her relentless pursuit of Thao and Skinner and the rest of their cronies, whose names she'd never know because their bones and ashes were all baking in the desert from here to Santa Fe.
She doesn't need to use any of them - which frankly, she's glad for because they're hollow, empty, defensive things - and nods instead. She understands that clawing of control - Birdie'd been down that same road, though it seems at the end of the day, Thao has done better for it than she did.
Different places in their respective lives, she supposes.
"Uh, no," she laughs quietly. "No vampire ESP that I know of."
She holds a hand out, so she can type her number in. "Got a phone?"
"Probably for the best, with the sheer amount of us in this town." Thao chuckled, fishing her phone out of her back pocket and unlocking it, before handing it over.
It was still difficult to look at Birdie and not see the face of the person who forced their blood into her system before killing her. She supposed that would take time to be replaced, but Thao wanted to work on truly forgiving and forgetting. It wasn't going to be an easy task; it's not like she could just flip a switch and it was all okay and forgiven, but the fact that she had come here and sought her fledgling out was a leap in the right direction.
"If you, or Kanemaru, need something, please don't forget you've got my number. I'm not quite sure what I could do for you, or what you or the clan needs, but... I'm trying to integrate. So, I'm here."
"She was cool, yeah." But she hadn't really had much one on one time with the woman, only what she was able to hear from her partner. At the end of the day, she was more like a lovable boss than anyone she was truly close to. Maybe one day they can get someone else, if Birdie doesn't want to stick with it. But for now, that's the hand they've been given.
Thao starts the color, and Lara wrinkles her nose a little at the feeling of it, but eventually it settles into a dull roar of pain at the back of her mind. It's nothing compared to the constant ache and itch of the werewolf venom knife that'd burned through her skin, and still burns to this day. She opens her mouth and wiggles her jaw around to settle some of the itching without moving too much.
"They're the oldest clan in the city. The eldest sister fled not too long ago, but the other two are just as.. odd. Almost two thousand or something like that? Weird. I'd keep distance, personally."
It wouldn't be hard for Thao to keep her distance. In truth, aside from her work, she was somewhat of a recluse. It had been easier that way when she had been turned. Her home kept her safe from the burning rays of the sun, and it also ensured she wouldn't take a bite out of the poor human who walked too close to her while she was gathering her control.
"Noted. Weird is certainly not something I'm looking to get myself involved with." Though the mention of sisters had her believing she wouldn't have to worry about that. The clan seemed like a homegrown family, not something Thao was part of in any way.
She continued working on the colour of the tattoo, music playing softly filling any silences in their conversation. She took a moment to wipe down the tattoo, clean it up, and see any places that she needed to go back over to ensure the ink stayed beneath the skin.
"Not much yet, just need to pack a bit more colour in and then some white highlights. You hanging in there, okay? Need anything?"
Oksana's lips purse into something of a pout at the answer. A vampire who does not drink from the source? She lets out a sound that's something akin to a scoff, disbelieving it. Had she run into anyone like that in her time? No, she does not think so. Everyone she'd been around loved the thrill of the chase, the hunt. They are monsters, no? Why not enjoy being so?
None of this is voiced, just yet, as she studies the woman, pacing back and forth as she taps a fingertip on her chin. "Control?" She asks, finally, wondering what it is that's so appealing about control. Maybe it's not clear in her one-word question, though. "Why control? Are you.. afraid?"
Not afraid, she thinks, but something else - "Or - ah! Are you ashamed of this life?" She leans in close to Thao, bent at the hips to study her closer. "You are new. Have to be. Old ones do not find such novelty in being so.. restrictive. Am I correct?"
When asked if she was afraid, Thao furrowed her brow in thought. Was it fear that stopped her from giving in to who she now was, or was it knowing that the guilt of potentially ending lives would eat her alive? She supposed it was both.
"I don't wish to kill anyone, and I'm afraid that I wouldn't stop, or know when to stop." She had never been taught any better, never shown how to take enough to get her by and leave the human alive. How was she to know any better?
Ashamed wasn't the word, but it wasn't something she would have ever chosen for herself. "I... I don't think I'm ashamed; this just wasn't my choice, wasn't what I wanted. I've seen the destruction we can bring, and I don't ever want to bring that, or be that." Thao tensed as the other moved closer, trying to keep herself relaxed around the stranger, but if her heart still beat, she was sure it would be beating out of her chest. "Yes, I'm pretty new."
This town's a squat, and it burns her up that she can't leave it. Bringing the hammer down on things that go bump in the night is all well and good, truly, but now some fuckery's happened and no one can leave.
That includes her - which is irritating - because Port Leiry is so small change.
But the cold chases people away and means she has this frozen lake all to herself. It is magical, at least, scenic enough, and the ice feels good under her feet, the scrape and glide of something not polished in an arena something she hasn't indulged in in a very long time.
But then it becomes obvious she's not alone - this doesn't bother her; she's found the secret to be alone in the center of an arena full of thousands - in her element, in her mode. She runs over the events of the week in full; hunt bills, warnings, things to look out for; strange things lurking in the icy fog and flurries that have decided to so suddenly plague this city.
Work, work, work - and all she wants to do is play.
So she's playing, sliding across, leaping, challenging herself. She lands a few twisting leaps, tracing flowing lines across the pond's surface before she decides - thirsty - and slides over to the edge of the water, where her compatriot seems to be lingering. She grabs her bag, fishes an insulated thermos free and take a long draught from it, the amber glow from Westriver's pathway lighting casting odd shadows across herself and the frozen pond before she checks her phone on it's little tripod, and stops it recording. "Thought I'd be alone out here."
Seeing her maker for the first time since her death was a lot, even if it was positive - a lot more positive than she would have expected. Thao needed some air, even with the snow and the cold. She walked and didn't know where she'd ended up until she saw a figure in front of her, skating across the fallen lake. She hadn't been invited, but the woman was memesmerising so Thao found herself standing there, watching the movements with awe.
"Oh-- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude," she started, offering a smile, "I was just walking, getting some air, and I saw you. You're mesmermising out there." Thao chuckled, hoping that the stranger wouldn't be too mad at her for the intrusion... Though it was a public place. "I suppose this weather is good for one thing, with it freezing everything. How long have you been skating for?"
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"Yeah, s'what my dad used to call me and it just always... stuck." The dad Thomas Skinner splattered across the stockings on the fireplace in front of her on Christmas Eve.
"Lara," she corrects, gently. "Yeah, she's a little more uh, outgoing than me sometimes."
It's something that needs to change - about her, not Lara.
Birdie scoffs a laugh out, shakes her head with a grin. She's not interested in revenge on somebody like Thao - or maybe she is, on some base, reptilian level in her brain. That's why they're here now, isn't it? Something in her, deep-seated and angry, had wanted Thao to suffer the same she did. But that's not her - or not the her she wants to be. She's already missed nearly a year now of this woman's new normal - a new normal that had led her to become a broken, emaciated husk of a being - Thao, on the other hand, seems to have made it through, at least a little.
"Yeah we uh... we don't do the clubhouse shit - or try not to. Or that's my aim. Got some inherited bad blood but... I don't know, I'm still figuring it out. All sort of... fell in my lap."
At the notion of staying away, Birdie steps forward, picking at her nails with a bit of anxiety. "A-actually I don't, I..." She lets Thao finish, nodding, and frozen as time is for her - she's in her thirties now - but never has she felt like a dumb kid than she does right now. She's that dumb, uncertain kid who's biggest worry was her parents approving of her getting engaged.
"I shouldn't have let you linger as long as I did, I had my own bullshit drama I was sorting out - your feelings, when your like this - I'm sure you've felt it, right? Everything hits like... like a ton harder. I... I'm here to say I'm sorry, for like everything. And like, to let you know if you need anything, how to uh, how to like, get ahold of me."
"Sorry, bad with names. Lara, got it." There were names that, of course, she would never forget, but otherwise, Thao was pretty bad with names. She'd get them eventually; it might just take a few times.
"I heard what happened to lead to that. I'm sorry for your loss." She spoke softly after listening to the small explanation. "It seems that Lara believes in you, and she seems like good people. If she believes in you, then I'm sure you're more than capable, Birdie."
The words of encouragement came easily, despite their many differences and their turbulent past, but that was just who Thao was - who she truly was, not who Birdie had known when Skinner was controlling both their lives.
She listened to Birdie's explanation, her apology, and tried to not to let her emotions show on her features but she was sure her face betrayed her. "If it were any other situation, any other person that we were both clearly victims of, your apology would be pushed right back into your face." Thao started, because to her, there was no excuse for introducing someone to vampirism and then abandoning them when they could potentially cause so many horrors... but Thomas Skinner was the excuse, was the reason, and the fledgling couldn't hold that against her maker. "But your apology is accepted, and I understand. Luckily for you, you had a fledgling yearning for control, and so it was only one night of slip-ups before I said no more and implemented methods to stop myself."
Thao sighed and looked to the other, a smile on her features, "So, how do I do that? Special vampiric communications that I don't know exist, or are we just going to exchange phone numbers?"
"Ready." She adjusts herself before she says it, relaxing into the chair. Thao seems fun, though, if a little guarded - but that's alright by her, she's cracked her fair share of new vampire eggs in her time. The tattoo gun buzzing and the needle hurts but it's not too bad. She sucks in a breath she doesn't need out of instinct, looking up to the ceiling.
"Hey - I get it." If Thao's not ready to talk about it, maybe they can eventually. She's patient. But she does understand the appeal of being able to spread your wings and let loose at the end of the day. It surprises her often that Kanemaru doesn't have more vampires than it does - in her experience, a lot of them get the short end of the stick when it comes to control and being controlled.
"For the new stuff, y'know.. not often. Lately it seems like things have been a little more topsy turvy, but we had Nsilo - may she rest in peace - for a while. Birdie's only really in the top spot because she was under her wing for a while." She runs fingers through her hair during a break in line work, so as to not jostle around so much. "I just provide emotional support and try to help steer us clear of the Lomidze weirdos."
Thao starts the tattoo, her face a picture of concentration as she works on the outline. She works carefully, but it's fast - clear that she was practiced and confident with her own abilities.
She offers a smile at Lara's understanding, a feeling within her telling her that the woman in front of her truly did get it. Perhaps one day she could open up to Lara, but for now, just meeting someone else like her who was also Kanemaru and wanted to get tattooed was enough for Thao.
The young vampire listened as the other spoke, pausing as she finished up the outline of the tattoo to change up the needles and offer Lara a sympathetic smile, "I'm truly sorry for your loss. She sounds like she was quite the person, and I wish I had the chance to get to know her in my time as a vampire." Nsilo sounded like someone Thao could truly appreciate and get along with, from what Lara had told her. She had no idea whether it would be the case, but she would like to think so.
"Emotional support and avoiding weirdos sounds good to me," she chuckled as she started working on the colour of the tattoo, "Who are the Lomidze's?"
