Saturday night, the moon full, the streets packed... and still Gypsy found herself alone in the crowd. It was still early so she figured she would go and check out the Art gallery to see if she could find heart there. She walked through the gallery's doors noting that everywhere seemed to be open at night. There must be others like me here. The night life alone shows that. But how does one go about finding a vampire? She thought.

She paid admittance with the crumpled bills in her pocket and walked into the room entitled "Local Art". Some of the work in here was amazing, some... well she didn't see how a painting of a five foot tall red stiletto would sell for three hundred bucks, but there it was with a little sign that said "sold". Gypsy furrowed her brows.

Maybe she could make a few extra dollars selling her paintings here. Hell, if a red stiletto could sell for that much, her stuff aut to fly right off the walls. It be good money. At least enough to get her out of the garage she was sleeping in. Thank God for pad locks! Without them... those kids would have fried her within the first day. That is, if sun really burnt vampires up. She still hadn't the guts to test that theory out.

Gypsy looked to her right and saw the most amazing painting. A perfect angel, naked but for a silk veil to cover the bare minimums. Her wings bathed in light, eyes closed with hands stretched up into the light of God. Gypsy walked over to it and put her hand about an inch from its surface. She wouldn't touch it, first for fear of burning to a crispy critter Do we really burn if we go into the house of god? What about garlic? and wooden steaks? How do you know what to avoid and what means nothing of it? , and second... because it was to beautiful to dare mare with her hands. She tried not to cry, she didn't have anything to keep them off her face, and that was all she needed to do. Cry blood in front of all these people. So, instead she sat down on the bench directly across from it. Only then did she take note of the painting beside it. Now that is how she felt. A demon surrounded by darkness. In the same position as the angel, only he was basking in the fires of hell above him. As if he were just below the fires.

Gypsy would sit here for a bit. Just to be in the presence of such art.

Chi was out on this night, alone once again. She was alone as always and it never seemed to change. After living for 6000 years some would think that she had found and lost love many times. there was perhaps one time where that had happen and it had never happen again.

She let out a sigh as she stepped into the museum. She passed over a few bills and was let in. She was a sight to see on this night. Her silver hair up above her head in a bun, no makeup on her face and dark clothes. She wore a dark blue skirt that emphasized her silver hair, she wore a black corset that was hidden underneath the brown leather jacket. She was always dressed in style and drew looks from men.

She was petite, exactly 5'2" and clearly had some asian heritage. Only a vampire would understand that that heritage was long passed. She was here because she needed to reflect on her life, reflect what she was doing wrong and what needed to be done. She knew that she would probably never find love again, but it was something that she knew that she would have to sacrifice. Something that she was willing to give up on.

She entered the "Local Art" room and looked around. Some objects did not catch her attention, but other pieces caught her eye and held it. One of them was a demon in the underworld. The symbolic of it didn't affect her, no not at all. It was the hidden meaning behind it. Trapped. A way she related to so well. A way she felt, something she knew that she would never ever be free of.

Gypsy broke from her trance to look around, a different sent had caught her nose. She looked up and saw the most beautiful woman she'd ever laid eyes on. Dressed wonderfully and in great.... what was the look on her face? Scared, lonely, Gypsy couldn't put her finger on it.

Gypsy opened her mouth to say something, but stopped as she looked at herself. Her pail hands were covered in grease stains, and paint had berried it's self under her long finger nails. Oil patches bleed through on her light blue low rise boot cut jeans. Her arm freckles and chest freckles were marred by oil. Her hair was up in a pony and she was sure there was oil streaked in there somewhere. And her garage shirt looked like crap over her red belly wife beater. I wonder why they call them 'wife beaters'. Do men beat their wives with them, or when they are wearing them? A small smile played across her face. Until she saw her boots. Untied black steal toed clod hoppers. That woman would never give her a second glance.

God, how in the world was she suppose to get food dressing like this? Gypsy frowned to herself.

Before she even realized what she was doing. Gypsy had opened her mouth again, and before she could stop herself... she spoke.

"Would you like to sit down with me Cher?" She asked with her slight french accent. So it was french tonight. Gypsy wished her tongue would make up it's mind about what she spoke. Some nights it was Irish, some it was German, and still others it was a slang she never heard around here. Tonight, it seamed as though her tongue wished to speak french.

"I swear I will not bite Ma Dame." Gypsy looked up to judge the woman's reaction.

Chi was lost in thought as she looked over the painting, her eyes darting momentarily to the other, the one with the angel, before discarding it from thought and returning to the one with demon. Her dark eyes were aimed at the painting, but the rest of her body was alert to any outside action.

She wasn't afraid, she had learned to tame her fear, but she alone, though she had finally decided to accept it as her fate. She wanted to feel, but knew that feeling only and always brought disappointement, perhaps it was time that she act like the wise and old vampire that she was. More often than not that was a bore, but what was left of her life if she didn't do that.

Her eyes moved from the painting to the vampire that sat at the bench as soon as the younger vampire spoke. There was something French in that tone, but also a mixture of other accents. Chi reconized that, her own voice held a misture of accents, french, egyptian, latin, the language that she spoke in her youth from a time far past. "Yes, I would like to sit down." She sat, fussing momentarily with her skirt until she was comfortable and she was sure her skirt wouldn't wrinkle.

Chi laughed softly. "I have no fear of being bit, usually I do the biting." With her old age, she had bit many people and had taken many vampires under her wings, whether they were her fledglings or not, though she only had one fledgling of her own and he was dead. So after that she had stopped the heartbreak by it happening again.

Maybe the look on this woman's face was the same look Gypsy found on her own face when she looked in the mirror. The look that said: "I am alone in this world, and there is nothing I can do about it."

Maybe I should just stop my search. Gypsy thought. I have been at this for such a long time, and I have only found a few in Manhattan. How is that to help me any? And they had less answers than I do. Gypsy sighed. I am done. There is nothing more for me to find. I am alone here. I will stick to my cars and paintings. They will forever be my company. If I really do live forever.

Gypsy smiled with her lips closed. She still hadn't been able to train herself to hide the fangs, so she would avoid flashing them for now. At least she had perfected the art of talking without flashing them. God she was hungry... again.

"Your skirt is fine Chere." Gypsy smiled again noting the strange accent the woman had. It was good to know that she was not the only visitor to these lands.

Gypsy looked at the woman with a bit of perplexed anxiety with the woman's next comment. So many people were into the vampire scene through the world. Was this woman too? Gypsy sighed again with a light smile playing across her lips. "Well, I do bite sometimes. I try not to too often though." Gypsy gave a small laugh with her bit of humor.

"Aren't they beautiful? The paintings? The angel" Gypsy said pointing to it, "Is full of love and light. The knowledge that she is with God in all his glory." Gypsy tried not to cry as she let her hand guide it's own way to the next painting. "And the Demon. Lost from it, trapped, unable to reach the light of even the fires of his domain. Almost like the theater masks of Comedy and Tragedy aren't they?"

Gypsy's emotions due to the paintings and what they represented for her were flying through out her body. With out her intentions or knowledge, her mind unable to control it's self began plucking leaves off the plant to the right of where the girls were sitting. Some merely falling to the floor under the small tree, others swirling around the top like a halo. Her minds way of releasing the painting from with in her. A few more people were trickling in to this part of the art gallery.

"I'm Gypsy." She said as she turned her head in the direction of the woman, completely unaware of what was happening. If only she had more control.

Chi knew that she alone in this world. There was no way that anybody would understand what it was like to go through millenias of loneliness. No one understood her, no one got the pain of being alone for so long. No one knew the love and desire she wanted to feel and the loneliness she felt instead. Her body wanted and felt desires that simply remained unfulfilled. It was a curse that she know felt and knew that she was doomed to live with.

Chi turned to the other woman surprised. "Force of habit. During the Renaissance, you were almost forced to fix your skirt or else you couldn't sit at all. I never got rid of the habit. It sometimes happen that I remember not to do it, but mostly it is ingrained in me." That was something that she remembered to do all the time and it was hard to get rid of.

Chi looked at her and smiled. She leaned in closer to her. "Vampires are everywhere my dear. Even when you think that there are none, there is one." Chi smiled again. Vampires where well known in Demaitre, it even had enough of a population to hold all five covens. If you didn't want to be alone, you joined a coven. Chi was getting used to this total aloness thing. Life only brought disappointement.

"I like the demon one more. Angels don't exist, they are simply a figment of our imagination. Demons though, we are the demons of this world. Always causing problems, feeding on humans. It also shows loneliness, separated from everything, an emotion I know all too well." It was almost as if she had forgotten the other was present, talking to herself, lost in thought.

She jumped when the other presented herself. "Hello Gypsy, I'm Chi. I come from a far distant land and a much more distant time."

Gypsy was shell shocked. Her mouth hung open exposing her fangs to the world and her eyes had gone wide. The only thing that broke her from her shock was the fact that all the leaves of the little tree had flown off of it and started flying around her. Gypsy immediately closed herself off and stopped her minds workings. She cleared her thoughts and settled herself. All the leaves fell to the ground around the two.

"The Renaissance?! Cher dieu dans le ciel! " Gypsy blurted. Never mind the woman seamed to have gone into her mind and plucked the thoughts right out. Gypsy had found what she was looking for the minute she had decided to stop looking.

A child's grin instantly spread across Gypsy's face. She even forgot to keep her lips covering her fangs. She was suddenly filled with the most joy she could remember. And that wasn't saying much really. She felt like a kid who's faith in Santa Clause had just been renewed.

"If we exist than what is to say that Angels don't?" Gypsy asked. "Just because we don't see them does not mean that they are not there.... Your a vampire? Are you serious? I am soooo not dreaming right?" Gypsy just couldn't bottle up this new found emotion.

"Nice to meet you mon belle!" Gypsy shoved her hand out to be taken in greeting. "Lass you don't know how long I have been waiting to find you!"

Chi simply stared at her and blinked. That wasn't the reaction she had been expecting. Had the woman never met another vampire before. "Yes the Renaissance. Though that isn't my time period. I was only passing through I decided to spend time in France. Very beautiful place at the time."

Chi rolled her eyes. "Listen, we evolved along side mortals. Angels are a little different, they are simply a figment of imagination, created long after other religions, cults. I don't believe in them. Then again I was born long before the first Jew. so I don't believe in God." Chi had a more open attitude to the world, though she thought that some aspects of religion went too far.

Chi took her hand and patted it gently. "You are not dreaming. I am very real and I'm not the only other vampire. Thee are a lot of other ones. I'm just one among many, an ancient, but still only one. There should be perhaps a few hundreds of us in the city, if not more." Chi couldn't believe what she was hearing. The fact that she had been waited for seemed ridiculous to her ears.

Gypsy gave a dismissive look and wave of her hand. "Forget the religion crap. I got more important things to talk to you about!" Gypsy pulled her legs up on to the bench and folded them under herself like a child.

"I don't know anything about the Renaissance, but then again, I don't know much of anything." Gypsy got a thoughtful look on her face, then returned to her giddy smiling. "What was it like? Were there really knights fighting for princesses and all that? How old are you? When were you made?" Gypsy stopped her flurry of questions when she heard that there were hundreds of vampires in this city.

"I have not run into another vampire but you. At least... I don't think I have. Do you know the other vampires? Jesus toots, do we really burn in daylight, what about garlic... does garlic really hurt us? I mean Mon Dieu there is so much that I have been wondering about!" Gypsy stood up a bit too fast to be seen as mortal. "This is all so much. I have finally come to the start of finding out about myself and who I am!"

Chi thought that the younger vampire was going to have a heart attack, well if she hadn't been already dead she probably would have. Chi could easily forget the religion crap, she wasn't into it at all. She was more of a mother Earth person.

Chi thought that Gypsy asked too many questions but then again she seemed to have forgotten everything. "The renaissance was simply another step in my long, boring life." She paused for a moment, thinking it over. "Except that the entire, exotic, going to court did put some excitement in my long life."

Chi paused. "Umm, no. Knights came before that during the medieval area, I saw them too, but I had to lay low. I wasn't suppose to be there. Because of the whole, I don't fit in there. Asian in European a little odd, though I look more like a cross in between an Asian and European."

Chi blinked at the following question. How old was she? Enough to be called an ancient 3 times over. "Over 6000 and counting, though I don't quite count anymore. So if you do the math, that would be about 4000 B.C. in what is now China."

Chi shrugged. "The sun will kill you, for everything else that is really about the vampire. Garlic doesn't bother me, but I don't like fire and I know that it would most likely burn me up." Chi shrugged as the woman stood up. "Calm yourself darling and sit down, we can talk."

Gypsy sat down.

"I am so sorry Chi, I am just so happy that I have finally found someone else like me. I have been so alone for almost a year now." Gypsy's face melted into a thoughtful frown. "I woke up with nothing but the cloths on my back and a few dollars in my pocket. I don't even know who I am or how old I am, or even why I know how to speak French."

Gypsy sighed. "Could you believe waking up with super powers and puking up everything you tried to eat? I was so scared and didn't know what was happening. Learning everything I know now on my own was very hard. I was horrified when I figured out that the hunger I was feeling was for blood."

Gypsy looked at Chi and smiled. "You don't mind helping me out do you? There is so much that I need to know."

Chi looked at her. "You think a year is long, try a century. That is long. I haven't had any friends or companions in at least that long. Make mortal friends but they die and most vampires back then didn't catch my fancy."

Chi smiled at her. "You'll figure it out eventually, most vampires do. You simply need time to process what you slowly learn." She couldn't help feeling bad for the younger vampire and she shrugged.

Chi continued smiling. "Anything you want to know or need to know, I will tell you. I don't mind helping a younger vampire to find her way. Especially when she has questions that needs answers to." Chi looked at the painting of the demon and thought it over. Perhaps she would buy it, it seemed interesting.

"Well a year is long when you don't know who or what you are. Though, living for centuries would definitely put a hamper on things. I am sure you will find someone." Gypsy patted Chi's hand and gave her a big smile.

"I am sure that I will. I learn pretty fast though. I just wish I could figure out the finer details you know?"

"Are you sure you don't mind helping me? I don't want to be a burden or anything. I just need to know what hurts me, where to go for help, what I can and can not use or drink. I mean, I figured out I cold stomach vodka... but what else? And I need to find someone who can help me remember who I am and track my sire down. Find out why he abandoned me." Gypsy smiled again. "I really do thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Chi gave her a blank look. Tt was probably the easiest thing to do and one of the first looks she had mastered. "I've tried looking for someone and I ended up being heart broken so I don't want to have to go through that again. Thanks for the optimistic attitude." Chi had decided that she would never fall in love ever again, unless she had a damn good reason to do so.

"There really isn't all that much to learn. Everything is pretty straight forward, but like the mortals around us, every vampire is different. Every vampire has different abilities, I have telepathy and telekinesis and a few other things that aren't easy to explain. Some things you simply have to figure on your own."

Gypsy frowned. Finding herself was going to be harder than she thought. But all is far in love and war no? Gypsy settled down. Sitting silently next to Chi for a moment.

"Okay then. How can I tell the difference between vampire and human then? I guess I should really start with that. No need being in danger right?"

Gypsy re-positioned herself to look right into Chi's eyes. A very soft look on her face, completely ready to begin learning.

Perhaps all was fair in love and war, yet why was it that everytime she entered such a game, she always lost? How was it fair, if she ended up alone time after time, her heart almost completely shattered. For once she wanted to be happy, to feel that expanding joy seep into her heart and to stay there forever, yet love would not bring that to her.

Chi frowned at her. How to tell a difference between a mortal and a vampire? It was hard to tell, Chi simply knew. She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what to tell you. Most vampires simply know, they feel it. Others actually feel the heat coming off of mortals, feel it or even see it. I just know, then again, I don't remember if that was the way I knew in the beginning." Her beginning had been so long ago that she couldn't quite remember how it had felt around other vampires. Yet back in her time, vampires weren't all that popular.

Chi wasn't sure whether she could teach the woman, there were some things that couldn't be taught but were simply acquired. She was afraid that the woman would get discouraged.

Gypsy smiled warmly at Chi. She truly was a wonderful being. Even if things didn't end up with her returning to what she once was, that was okay, she'd finally found some one like her. That was all that truly mattered. She was no longer alone. Gypsy would embrace this new beginning.

"You know what?" Gypsy said... "If you can't help me that is okay. All I want is company... someone to share this existence with... friend or lover I don't care at this point... just someone like me." Gypsy looked to Chi hopefully.

"Would you consider being a friend to me Chi? I would really enjoy the company."

Was Chi wonderful? Yes she supposed that she was. You need to have that extra something to live as long as she had. You needed the experience and the drive to survive. Especially when change seemed to be everywhere on this planet.

Chi looked at the younger vampire and a soft smile played across her lips. "You don't have to ask, I wouldn't mind being your friend at all." Gypsy needed some sort of direction and Chi was more than willing to help, besides it was better that a friend help another.