Dream & Deception

There is a moment for all Kindred, after the sun sets and before they rise, a tangible moment where the consciousness kicks back awake a mere breath before their eyes flutter open. Mortal experience the same thing, on occasion they feel the thud of their heartbeat as it summon them from the slumber, flushing their systems with vitae to prepare for the day. It's not a grand event, there is no pomp and ceremony to it. Most Kindred and Kine probably never even become aware of it during the entirety of their existence but on this particular night Emily Masters had that moment and it tasted like dread.

It was a strange combination, knowing she was still asleep but somehow her senses were more alive. Her nostrils flared, filling her lungs with unneeded breath and her ears filled with that distinctive sound - leather on flesh, rhythmic and terrifying. She turned her minds eye inward, knowing already the creature she'd see. A lithe immortal, reclining in her old, leather chair. One leg would be curled under her, the other hanging over the arm. The golds and reds of her pinstripe jacket somehow seeming more regal then gaudy. She'd be toying with her whip, a relic of a circus long past. She'd be casually but deliberately slapping  against her palm. Emily turned, behest by some force greater then herself and there she was, in all her mad glory. The Ring Master.

- Hello, Polly...-

"...That's not my name anymore..."

- Oh, but it is. Polly of the Many Pockets, always Polly. My Polly, now and forever.-

Emily felt herself instinctively bow her head, her weight shifting to her knees in submission. It was as if all the nights of her Kindred life left her, the belief she'd built in herself crushed easily under the mastery of the creature before her who tusked and purred.

- Poor, little, Polly. You've lost control.-

"What do you mean?"

- Oh, Pretty Polly. Surely you hear the melody beginning to play, how you dance and sway to a tune you didn't create?-

"No. I am the one who created the score. I choreographed it all."

- You gave the duskborn the title, rightfully your own...-

"The target is on his back now!"

- And the power in his hands. What use does he have for you now, little Polly...-

The Ring Master shook her head sadly, again the handle of the whip smacked against her palm and a new sound accompanied it. The sound of it rending flesh, Emily knew that sound well. It was the sound of her past, of submission and forced loyalty. The Ring Master had been brutal as she performed, coaxing those poor abandoned people into adoring her, begging her for more. She'd strut the stage, commanding and here she was again and she felt the sting of her master anew.

- And the Gangrel, who dares to barter with you? Whose blood is thicker then your own now of your own creation... what sway do you have over her now? When stops her from abandoning you, throwing you into the fires to save themselves? -

"No, Mistress... forgive me... but Elodie is not like that..."

The whip cracked before she could fathomed it moved, silencing her. The Ring Master tilted her head, clucking her tongue, Emily knew she was annoyed she'd been interrupted and dared not offer any further resistance.

- As for the artificial rose who tugs your strings. When was the last time he crawl into your arms first, when last has be mewled your name? He watches you play with others, never possessive, how strange. He has you blood, little Polly, he has you. -

Emily curled in on herself, she could hear the old Nosferatu, whooping and laughing. Rat Face was there watching the human fall from the wire and crack its head on the stage. The fine spray of blood washing over her face, warm, wet and sticky. The whip cracked again as the laughed rose, like flames to burn and taunt. - They're coming -

Emily woke with a start, her heart thudded as her eyes snapped open. The blood from the dream was her own, smeared on her cheeks, her hands and bed.

She screamed.

- You let them in -