Put on your yamaka... [OPEN]

[thegreatexperiment]

WHO: Sam Moon
WHERE: The Inn
WHEN: First night of Hanukkah
OPEN TO: Anyone
WARNINGS: Probably just some coarse language because Sam is Sam; will update if needed.

---

After being adopted, Sam insisted on converting to Judaism. Not because she believed in any god or thought that bacon was disgusting. Kind of the opposite on both scores. It was more a matter of belonging. Or at least feeling like she belonged. There was a difference. She understood that better now, living in a world of hindsight. But after the Hebrew school, the Bat Mitzvah, the confirmation, Sam's faith became less about spirituality and more about...familiarity. Taking comfort in a ritual which symbolized home and hearth and family.

All that good stuff. You know, the stuff she couldn't have.

Sam couldn't have nice things.

Which probably explained why the menorah she'd put together for herself was a piece of shit. While Sam was a fine scientist, an engineer she was not. And she hadn't taken woodshop since middle school. The best she'd been able to cobble together was a long, flat stick that she'd skinned. Then she'd taken a few pages out of the journal Jude made her and rolled them into thin, narrow tubes. They would have been perfect for holding candles. If she'd been able to find any. But in the end, she'd kind of decided it would be a waste.

She set her lopsided, crappy art project on the window of the main floor, by the entrance of the Inn. If she'd thought for one second that it would have made things a little more festive...well. She was sadly mistaken. But if she squinted just enough, and stared at the structure at just the right angle, she could almost line up the center candle with a star in the sky, that looked vaguely like a flame.

Comments

[ithuriels_blood]

"You could always burn the paper but I don't think it'd last for eight days." Clary had been sitting at a table nearby when she saw Sam setting up her art project by the window. It was a pleasant distraction for Clary, pulling her from her thoughts and the drawings that were littered in front of her.

Using the paper to draw was probably a waste but Clary didn't care, it was the only thing in this village that was keeping her sane.

She placed her palms on the table and rose to walk over to where Sam was standing. "Did you not find candles or oil?" Clary really had no idea what was around here but she was sure that they could find something in the spirit of Hanukkah. For something like that, Clary thought it was worth it. Not that she's ever been religious but she's since learned that there was more to a religion than just believing in something.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam turned to look down the line of her shoulder. A fellow ginger? She would play nice. There had been a time, a long, long time ago, when she actually had been capable of being civil.

A lot of stuff had just happened since.

"Not worth it," she said, shrugging and looking back at her pathetic, homemade menorah. "Not gonna waste any of that stuff. If there is a God, he'll understand. If there isn't, well, then I'm not exactly losing anything." It was her pragmatic approach to religion. Which kept her much saner than staying up at night, wondering if God would even listen to a vampire's prayers.

Ventrue had it tough enough without those kinds of questions.

"Anyway," she said with a shrug, "you're supposed to light the candles and sing the prayers with family." She made a vague gesture to the empty space around her.

No family. Never really was.

[ithuriels_blood]

Clary didn't believe in god or anything like that. She knew that there were angels, there were demons and there were downworlders but god? Where was the proof? It felt like a silly thing to dismiss when she knew so many other beings existed.

If there was a god, she didn't want to believe in him if he just let his angels fall.

"I don't know any of the songs but I can learn if you're interested in some company." She paused, "New, not family company but hey, we have to start from somewhere."

Why not start at the beginning?

She pushed herself to her feet and stepped forward so that she was standing next to Sam. "I'm Clary." She offered a hand since handshakes were usually the easiest way to say hello when you were already standing next to someone.

[thegreatexperiment]

Several retorts were poised in her mouth, crouching like predators ready to strike. But Sam swallowed them back. She was getting surprisingly good at that, something she considered a sign of immense personal growth. Never mind that most people separated inside thoughts from outside thoughts in grade school.

She took Clary's hand, offering a hearty handshake that would have made Avery cringe and Karen remind her that hunters were around.

Didn't matter. She had a pulse now.

"Sam," she said. "Los Angeles, 2014." She'd begun automatically adding that now, with any new person she happened to meet. It was more meaningful than a last name and, anyway, she wasn't sure what to call herself these days.

[ithuriels_blood]

"That's useful." Clary hadn't thought to put her city and year at the end of her name like a title. "Brooklyn, New York, 2016"

As their handshake ended, Clary's arm dropped down to her side. She didn't mind the force in Sam's grip though she didn't match it. That felt too much like they were trying to arm wrestle each other while saying hello.

"Alright Sam, tell me what to do."

She wouldn't be particularly bothered if Sam told her off or had a sarcastic retort. Clary had used to be like that too though the last few weeks had tempered that some. She still teased people, even complete strangers, and she was constantly frustrated at their situation and the observers but she tried not to take it out on other people.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam's eyebrows puckered up a little, disappearing under the synthetic fringe of her wig. "Do?" she repeated. It took her another second or two to realize she was still on the Hanukkah train of thought. And she was torn between being oddly touched and thinking 'this ginger be cray.'

There was probably room for both, though. Sam would never again discount the existence of shades of gray.

Still, she shook her hand, giving Clary a dismissive wave. "Nah, nothing. I was just getting sentimental or something. I'm not really that observant. Just homesick."

And who among them wasn't?

Well, there was possibly a sociopath or two. Sam would never again discount the existence of sociopaths either.

[ithuriels_blood]

Clary was both thoughtful and a little bit crazy. You didn't use a cup that you pulled out of a tarot card to control demons without moving pass the usual threshold for crazy.

"Yeah. Me too." She exhaled, feeling the weight, guilt and loss of her home. They were fighting a war against her father, Simon was dealing with being a vampire, her brother had been kidnapped and her mother had just woken up. With all that going on back in New York, Clary found it hard to be focused on the village for long.

She really hated being stuck.

"I don't think it can be avoid." Clary glanced back over her shoulders at the table she'd been sitting at a few moments before. "I've been drawing bits and pieces of my home. Also not a great use for paper." But Clary didn't care. She was going to be selfish when it came to drawing.

[thegreatexperiment]

A ginger and an artist. Sam should have met this girl sooner. But then again, she had no real concept of time any more. Days blurred into one another, only occasionally punctuated by someone out there diddling with the experiment. She didn't even know if it was really Hanukkah or not. This was just her best guess.

She smiled a little, turning over to the drawings. Not bad. Not as good as her own, in her oh-so-humble opinion. But still. Not bad.

Sam made a vague gesture. "Show me?" she asked. Because it was rude to stare at someone's work, especially when they were standing right the fuck there.

Honestly, Sam welcomed the distraction.

[ithuriels_blood]

Clary didn't have pencils or pens to work with. She used the ash from the fire place, which she had collected in a small jar and would apply to her finger or the end of a thin twig that she had sharped into something like a pencil. It gave her work a very blurred look, lacking any hard or sharp edges.

"Sure." She stepped over towards the table and pulled a few of the pages so they were fully scattered and more easily visible.

She had said that they were imagines from home and she hadn't lied. There were prints of what looked like faded street corners or long cityscapes of the New York skyline. Mixed with those were pictures of friends; Isabelle with her long whip looking like a warrior goddess and Simon with his glasses and pale skin. The odd pictures were the ones of monsters and demons or angels with tattoos and marks like her own. One page was filled with the same runes that littered Clary's skin, a drawing of a cup and then small twists of fire.

Clary returned to the seat that she had occupied before and pushed a few pages to the side to find a blank one. "Do you draw?"

[ooc: Clary's Sketchbook references are here]

[thegreatexperiment]

It was rare for Sam to lose herself most days. Usually only sleep was a decent distraction. But as she looked over Clary's sketches, some of her hardened facade chipped. Just a little bit. The features on her face soften, the lines around her mouth disappearing to the point where, for a moment, she actually looked her age.

So terribly young, really.

Clary's sketches were wonderful. The blurred, faded images of home were the perfect symbolism, really, for their whole situation. The lived in an in-between space, for the moment. Seemed only right that their homes were in between in their own way too.

She paused, eyes lingering over the image of a demon and smoke. It was close to her own aesthetic. She would have utterly breathed in the image, if it hadn't come to her attention that Clary was asking her a question. Vaguely, she nodded in the affirmative. "And I paint too." And without so much as a breath of transition, "What's this?" She lifted the corner of the drawing with her fingertip.

[ithuriels_blood]

She was watching Sam with polite curiosity as the woman looked over her drawings. It was interesting to see the age lift from her features, as if the scattered images some how made her younger like Dorian Gray.

Clary smiled when she realized that she was speaking to a fellow artist. It wasn't that it was a very uncommon trait but it was nice to know people who are able to speak and communicate through the drawn world. It was something that Clary had always admired and was one of the reasons that she had gone into art in the first place.

"Sammael." She indicated the devil like drawing with smoke. It sounded like a title when it was actually the name of a Greater Demon. Clary had never seen him but the image had been burned into her mind as if it was placed there by a third party.

"Named after the fallen angel."

[thegreatexperiment]

It was dark and grotesque and disturbing. Sam loved it. She pulled her hand away and stepped back half a pace, still watching the way the lines on the page told their story. The corner of her mouth turned up slightly. It was what usually passed for a smile with Sam.

At least she meant it.

"I thought you said these were all images from home," she said wryly, at last tearing her gaze away to look at the artist.

[ithuriels_blood]

Clary tried to answer Sam but anything she had to say slipped feebly through her fingers. Instead, silence stretched on as Clary thoughtfully looked down at the images.

"They are." She said finally. She had no way to explain it. "It's sort of like it's from a dream but not at the same time." At least when it came to that picture. It was an image that she had seen once before and she knew that the greater demon existed in her world but it wasn't as if Clary had met him.

"I'm not making much sense am I?" She was getting used to that.

[frankensteinian]

It's while walking past the inn that something in the window catches his eye. He knows what it is, or at least what it's supposed to be, despite not having used one in years. In his childhood, it was one of the things his parents refused to sell, although it wasn't like anyone would have bought it if they had tried to get rid of it.

Instead of continuing on to his own house, he steps inside the main room of the inn. He says nothing for a moment, not sure what to say, but aware that he should say something.

"I suppose it is the time of year for that." Since there's no way of telling for sure.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam looked up when she heard the door open. She watched Erik enter, with a certain measure of trepidation. Erik made her...well, 'uncomfortable' was too strong of a word for it. Uneasy was probably better. Although it sounded weirdly Victorian and gross and not at all nice. Even if she didn't mean it in a cruel kind of way.

It was only...

Well. It was hard to know what to say to a man like him.

She let out a bit of a huff, hooking her thumbs through her back belt loops and rocking slightly on the balls of her feet. "I guessed," she admitted. "I mean, I'm not exactly an astronomer, so the lunar cycles aren't my area of expertise. But..." She figured her best guesses were usually pretty good.

Unless it came to people. People made no fucking sense.

[frankensteinian]

"There's no guarantee that the lunar cycles are the same anyway. We don't know where we are." They're just making everything up as they go, after all. "And I suppose there's an argument to be made that at long as it's happening, what difference does it make if it's a few days off?" He's not sure there's a point to it at all, but he does at least know better than to say that out loud.

"You could put wood in there instead of paper."

[thegreatexperiment]

She shrugged. "Maybe. But I didn't feel like going outside." As much as she prided herself on being a hearty midwestern girl who laughed in the face of a little snow...she was tired. On any number of levels. Emotionally. Spiritually. Physically.

Adding snow to that mix--especially elective snow--just didn't feel worth it right now.

Of course, little felt worth it right now, but she had enough sense to know that there was something wrong with that. Hence the menorah. Although she didn't think it was really helping her mood as much as she'd hoped.

Fuck.

She bit her lips together, shaking a piece of hair back, behind her shoulder. "Anyway, no point in lighting it."

[frankensteinian]

"Fair enough." It's cold out there, after all, and going out there after wood to put in a makeshift menorah isn't a necessity like going after wood for a fire or cooking is. He knows that he dawdles less outside now than he does in the warmer months.

"I can't argue with you there." His reasons are probably different from her reasons though. "Maybe next year."

[thegreatexperiment]

Well, that was a depressing thought. Another year. But all signs seemed to indicate she wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

Which was another depressing thought.

Sam took a deep breath, wiping down her palms on the legs of her pants. "My family had this stupid song we used to sing every year. I think I remember..."

Of course she remembered. And because she'd been genetically engineered, she actually had perfect pitch when she sang:

Oh Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah
Come light the menorah
We celebrate although
It's not in the Torah

Not exactly the standard prayers. But Sam's life had never really been all that standard, anyway.

[frankensteinian]

He doesn't know how long he's been here, if it's been a year or not. All he knows is that when he arrived here, it was cold and there was snow. So at the very least, it's been almost a year. And he sees no reason to assume that he'll be leaving here anytime soon, if he hasn't left yet.

"Catchy." His family had had traditions too, though they weren't that different from anyone else's traditions. He doesn't want to talk about them though. "I suppose it got the job done though."

[thegreatexperiment]

She shrugged. "Anything that brings the family together gets the job done, I guess." And it certainly had. They'd been united in their eccentricities, if not by actual blood.

The song wasn't getting much of anything done right now.

Good thing they'd never bothered writing any more verses.

Sam brushed a few of her curls through her fingers. "It's stupid."

[frankensteinian]

"Well it..." He doesn't want to say it's stupid, even if she already has. "It's actually kind of charming, in its own way." Maybe that's not exactly the right word, but neither is stupid. Just the fact that they'd made up something like that means something. "My family never had anything like that."

[thegreatexperiment]

Charming in its own way. That was a good way to describe Sam, on her good days. She was an acquired taste, to be sure.

But then again, so was the best humor.

She turned to look at Erik, tightening her arms around her chest. "So you had a normal family, then?"

Maybe she regretted it the moment she asked. But there was no turning back time.

[frankensteinian]

It's not too far off for Erik either, although a more accurate description for him is 'charming when he wants to be.' Which at least is better than not at all, which is all he can say about some people.

"That depends on your definition of normal."

Though in most cases, he would agree that they had been a normal family. Until the end, anyway.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam swallowed, her throat constricting slightly. She didn't want to tread too deeply into this territory. For both of their sakes. But at the same time, handling Erik with kiddie gloves felt...

...weirdly disrespectful.

Or something.

She took a deep breath, before shrugging. "I don't know. I've never really had normal before."