Leo is not new to being a vampire of the Red Court. He's not a noble or anything, but he's been around for a very long time. He's reached the ripe old age of 600, outliving his noble father and the vast majority of his bloodthirsty sisters, almost entirely by being a filthy coward. He has no pretensions to the blood of milk-pale virgins; he's perfectly fine getting his dinner for the week under a bridge. He occasionally keeps slaves, but only rarely. Most of the time, he occupies himself with reading, and painting, and delicious, delicious blood. On occasion he indulges in a good alleyway lurking.
This is one of those occasions. Chicago's alleyways are not particularly well maintained, but they're better than the slums of Toledo in 1632. Leo likes them. They're meditative, and often contain convenient homeless populations.
A short, confused man with a cat perched on his shoulder stumbles out of a brick wall that looks for a split second like it is made of black rock and has a crack in it just wide enough to admit him. He spins around to stare at the wall. He prods it with his finger.
"I didn't think I was that lost..." he says woefully. His cat meows. He sighs.
The cat is a grey tuxedo tabby with bright gold eyes. The man's age is indeterminate; at first glance his height makes him look like a child, at second glance the set of his face makes him look considerably older, and at third glance it's hard to imagine anyone this radiantly, offensively healthy being much more than twenty, especially not in any century where people dressed like that. If there has ever been a century where people dressed like that. He looks like he belongs in a Disney movie.
"The great city of Chicago. If you're lost in the Never and you open a Way to nowhere in particular, it seems like there's about a ten percent chance you'll land here; it's a major crossroads. I thought you were some kind of faerie for the pretty and the portal, but you're not acting like one. Again, what are you?"
"A prince! How charming." Leo sketches a highly ironical bow. "Now, I think a royal dwarf would've come up in the gossip rags a few decades back, and I think the royals aren't inbreeding enough to churn those out anymore anyway, so... are you the prince of some odd species of tiny pretty men who live in caves in the Nevernever and, I don't know, hunt unicorns or something?"
His cat meows definitively.
"Oh? Well all right then," he says, shrugging. "Anyway, where was I? Right. I am the prince of Raxwell. It's a perfectly ordinary human kingdom, more or less. And I have no idea what you mean when you say 'the Nevernever'."
"Humans don't have kingdoms anymore, friend, so I'd say you're very, very lost. If you don't know what the Nevernever is, I'd say that's a point towards even more lost. And if you have to specify that the cursing faerie was wicked, that'd be your third strike. So. Welcome to Earth, princeling."
It may be noted at this point that the alleyway has no exits.
"Well, it's a very pleasant process for them. Vampire saliva is like bottled happiness. Really, it'd be crueler to let them live in a world without a regular supply of it. Are you talking to your cat? Actually, is your cat talking to you? That's adorable."
"Cats don't anything in this world! They're dumb animals that eat mice and piss on your furniture and run about like idiots! There are things that look like cats that talk and do any variety of things, but as I said, those are uncommon and besides which they aren't actually cats."
"Yep. Called thralls, or 'Renfields' if you're puckish. They're humans who've been psychically mauled by some vampire- different kind of vampire, Black Court- until there's nothing left in them but rage. They're about as intelligent as the average dog, far as anyone can tell. Nasty stuff."
"Oh, thanks. It's not a nice place for mortals, no. Unless you're a wizard or something, that's a nice gig. Or was, 'til the war started and my people started murdering the shit out of them all. Less nice nowadays, I think. High mortality rate."
At least, he usually does. He thinks he does. He feels weird about the question. This is usually easier.
"I- care about people. But only when they matter. I care about my mother. I cared about... a few of my sisters. I... I cared about a human, once, but it didn't last. They don't live very long even without my interfering, you know."
Friends are what? Why would he want them? Why does he want them, when he's thought of the idea maybe a dozen times in his six hundred years and dismissed it every time? What's different?
"Are you... doing something to me? I feel- I feel strange." Leo breathes heavily, staring at the stained concrete. Something churns inside him. He has a vague memory, from his two decades of humanity, of being on a ship and feeling nauseous. It's wrong. "You're... you're doing something to my head."
"You- you're- doing something. I feel- wrong. I'm not supposed to feel- I'm not supposed to want to feel this way. I'm not supposed to be able to feel this way, I don't have a soul, there's- I feel like I'm-" He lets out a wordless snarl of frustration and falls to the ground. His fist crashes down on the concrete, crushing a dent into it. "What did you do?"
"I don't know!" yelps Milo. "I didn't think I was doing anything except having a friendly argument about the wider implications of your eating habits! I've been told I can be a pain to argue with but most people don't actually fall over and start punching the ground!"
"It's- a soul, is, this energy in- humans, and other mortalish things, that makes them- changeable, not defined by what they are, makes them feel bad about doing what's best. I don't have one, which is very fucking convenient because it means I can eat people like I need to without feeling- guilty about it like some fucking mortal!"
Which reminds him. "How am I going to feed? I can drink from cows and all, but I need some human blood with it too, it's not just a physical thing. And I can't feed without addicting some poor bastard, which, you know, I'd rather not do."
Then it remembers that Milo is present, and looks mortified. "Oh, shit, sorry, I just- sorry, the- Jesus, okay. So... human form. It's an illusion made out of... stuff. There was no way I was going to get that clean, so... got rid of the stuff. I'll make it back again. Sorry. Fuck."
(Slowly, the edges of his face are creeping inward.)
"Mm, it's... different when I'm doing it. Usually it still hurts, at least enough to tell me what I'm supposed to be reacting to. And if something hits hard enough to rip it off, that still hurts like hell. But usually it's dulled. Then again, I wouldn't feel that much pain if you hit me straight on either. We're durable, we vampires."
"That sucks," Leo winces. "I mean, it's good you've got the recovery, but- ugh. I could half-turn you, if you like? Or just turn you, but that'd get rid of your soul, and you seem attached to that. Either way, you'd get a lot sturdier. And strong and fast and all. It's really nice."
"It's- I've never done it, but apparently if you start turning someone and they don't kill anybody drinking from them they can just stay that way forever. You'd only get a fraction of the power set, but that's still pretty good. Might be enough to make up for the unpleasant fairy curse."
"Countries. Occasionally the countries have kings, but the kings generally don't do all that much, because some bright spark realized that trusting a bloodline to consistently churn out good leaders doesn't actually work. For humans, at least."
"Various parliaments and congresses and a handful of dictators, though many of the latter are actually vampires. I'm not quite sure how bloodline rulership could work for humans without some odd magic thing, and considering you're a prince I'm inclined to take your recommendation of the system with a grain of salt."
"Well, I'd ask Cath to back me up, but you can't understand her and don't seem to like her much, so that's out. I suppose it doesn't matter much until I find a way to get back home, anyhow. Why are a lot of dictators vampires? Do they find it particularly fulfilling, or something?"
"...Who said anything about assassinating anyone?" he says indignantly. "I wouldn't! Well, not without a very good reason and not if I wasn't really, really sure I could pull it off. I just don't think I approve of people taking over countries in order to eat their subjects. But I have entirely different and probably much less dangerous absurdly difficult goals to focus on right now."
He pauses. "Please take my advice on whom you can and can't handle, by the way. I have this image in my head of you ringing Mab's doorbell and trying to funnel a soul into her." He shudders at the thought.
"I don't even know who that is. I don't even know if this soul business is actually something I did, or whether I can ever do it again if so! I'm not going to go around trying to - soul people, on purpose, until I understand at least a little more about what the fuck is going on!"
"Well, you don't seem to mind the results, and if you learned to control it it'd certainly suit your goals, so I felt like being proactive! And Mab is the queen of the Winter fae, an inimitably unpleasant woman by all accounts. Not a good idea to fuck with her."
"Seriously, don't fuck with Mab. You being human and fragile and all, she could quite literally kill you with a stray thought. If she spoke to you in the wrong tone of voice, she'd turn your bones into dust. I'd rather keep you in one piece."
Cath answers with a series of meows.
"I haven't done anything like it before, I don't know what you're talking about."
Meow meow.
"There is a big difference between 'person who can kill you with a thought' and 'carpet that can turn you into a rabbit'!"
"No, and I know from horrifyingly painful," snorts Milo. "Didn't hurt at all. One second I'm a little boy, the next I'm a tiny rabbit with incredible amounts of fluff. I spent about a week eating an undesirable amount of vegetables before I could go out under a new moon and get the transformation reversed."
"Ha. That is not news, my friend. It's alright long as you're not a human, though. Or as long as you have someone who can be aggressively nonhuman at various things that want to eat you, which is a niche I am happy to fill."
Leo has a sudden disastrous urge to kiss him. It passes, and he stands. "We should probably get inside before the sun comes up," he sighs. "I'd hate to die the day I got my shiny new soul."
Cath makes a noise.
"Me? Reckless? Well I never."
"It would not be all that happened. Your blood would be turned to ice, you'd be shredded into a million little royal bits, if it really took all that much to kill you she might take your soul and do some unpleasantnesses to it instead. If Mab wanted you dead, you'd be dead. Not dying sounds like the best of your plans so far, let's go with that one."
Cath meows.
"I appreciate your concern, but for once in my life I think my degree of ambition is perfectly appropriate to the situation," says Milo.
He's crying a bit again. Fucking souls.
"I'm just, I'm sorry, I just- I don't know how to protect you enough to, to make the little flashing light in my head stop saying 'WHY ARE YOU LETTING HIM WALK OFF THIS CLIFF', I don't know what I can- say, or do, or- I don't know. I'm, I'm sorry."
Cath meows, somewhat at length. Milo listens to her, then translates, "She says that although I'm frequently a reckless idiot, I am actually very smart and will probably do just fine if I get a chance to sit down and learn what makes this place tick. Thank you, Catherine."