"-Mikhail? you alright? I heard you crying.
- I'm not crying I'm just...just...yeah I was crying, I hate when someone catches me crying...
- Why? you insist so much to say this is a safe place where people can express their emotions and stuff.
- Yes it's true, but it's another of my childhood traumas, when I was a kid my dad raised us with the "men don't cry" mentality, so he used to hit us in the face with his belt if he caught us crying...so I feel like any moment the old fucker will open my door and hit me with his belt again.
- Your dad seem to be a massive asshole.
- He is! despite being educated and rich he acted like a macho man troglodyte all the time... like 90% of the emotional issues I have nowadays are because his shitty behavior in my childhood...he traumatized me more than the fucking war.
- Is he still alive?
- Sadly for this world, yes...
- Do you want me to butcher the old man?would it help? I love a good hunt especially if it involves a long trip, just give me the address and I end him, I can even film everything on my phone to show you later!
- Oh! no no! please don't, yes I hate him with all my strength, but I dont have stomach to have him killed, let the old man rot alone in his manor.
- Ok, but if you change your mind I'm up to the hunt!
- I wish my greatest problem was my shitty dad right now...
- I can feel your tension and distress from here...you seem a pile of nerves... do you allow me to caress you? I know you are still iffy with me since the accident last month....
- Ok...but are you well fed?
- Yes, my tummy is full, no predatory instincts will kick in today.
- Ok, then it's fine...
- Good good...now tell me, what is troubling you so much?
-Things are not going well Danadriel, the dream of the commune is going down the drain and its my fault!
-Can you explain why?
-It's all money, we are absolutely fucking drained, I crunched the numbers of this month and we are like in debt of 3200 credits just in medical bills alone and our food reserves will last until the end of this week at best!
- Does everyone contributed this month?
- Yeah! everyone gave more than their fair share this month and yet still we are broke! a lot of people here need medication on the daily basis, insulin, hormones, antidepressants, anxiolytics, puberty blockers and so on, we were fine in the last months but the prices were absurdely cranked up this month, and this will only snowball from now on!I tried everything to reduce our expenses and it was in vain, we still broken and I feel it was due my incompetence.
- I know you get angry when I say this, but you are acting like a leader in this anarchic community, you taking alone a burden that should be shared by everyone.
- Maybe I am...but I feel like the others already have to put up with so much bullshit in their daily lives that I dont wanna make their day even worse with this administrative shit...
-You also have your limits, everyone here agreed to share the burden when they joined.
- Maybe you are right...it's just that, when we "founded" this place our idea was to have a safe place for marginalized people to have a home, a place we're together we could survive the unfair system and maybe even have a confortable life...now I have to tell everyone that this dream is in the last legs and will probably end in one week!
-Dont worry Mikhail, you don't have to tell anything to anyone, I have the money to shoulder our expenses this month...maybe even further.
-You do!? where did you got it!?
- I've been contacted by a fixer...and she offered me a quick and very lucrative job.
- A fixer? who?
- Black Mamba.
- BLACK MAMBA! for fucks sake Danadriel, she is dangerous as fuck, you cannot meddle with people like her, I did some runs for her in the past and it almost costed my life!
- Mikhail, I've been dealing with dangerous people 700 years before you were even born, dont worry mama here got experience!
-I guess you got a point...how much did you got?
- 27k credits.
- 27k! Black Mamba don't give this much money out of goodness of her heart! what kind of job you did for her!???
- Like you kids say these days I "Flatlined a pig".
- You killed a cop!? you crazy!? these fuckers are like a gang, if you kill one of them they will hunt you to death!
- I did the job like a shadow in the night, I drained the guy so swiftly no one saw it, and thanks to my powers not even the cameras caught me, miss Mamba will even pay me a little extra for the discretion.
- Are you sure they will not investigate it further?
- Yep, it was a cop on cop thing, apparently the target was involved in a racketeering scheme and he was hiding money from his partners in crime, so they paid to get him dead...his death was registered as a heart attack and his body cremated...so bye bye evidence.
- Wow, those are the guardians of law and order, To protect and serve! Am I right!?...what a bunch of swines, I have no words....good riddance!
- hahaha, everything will be fine, Black Mamba will pay me tonight in hard cash...she wanted to pay me in crypto money, but I don't accept this make believe money, I come from a time where we weighted the gold to pay stuff and this thing of paper money is already my limit!
- Are you going to weight the cash too granny? hahaha!
- I will ask if miss Mamba has a scale in her office! hehehe.
- Jokes aside, how much of our debt are you willing to shoulder?
- I only need like 3k to buy some actual clothes, the rest is for the gang.
- WHAT? really?
- Yeah, "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" you said that in the night I joined, I'm just giving to our community what my ability can provide.
- Wow, with this money we could finally buy Kate a new wheel chair, and buy some baby clothes and stuff for Darlene's soon to arrive babies...and a new eye for Sabrina since she is running half blind for almost a year at this point...or even repair our van!
- And that's not the end, I'm gonna take more jobs with Black Mamba, she has some really high paying opportunities, with this cash we can seriously improve the lives with everyone here.
- Danadriel, I appreciate the help but you don't need to take this much risk for us.
- If it helps...I have some less charitable reasons to work with Miss Mamba...I spent centuries locked in a box, and I cant deny I have a thirst for killing, I need to strech my muscles from time to time you know...
-I can't relate but I understand, I guess.
- Also, she referred to me as "ancient blood sucker" in our conversation...she is aware of my nature, maybe she has contact with other vampires, she is currently my only hope to find more about the fate of my kin.
-Ok that's a very valid reason, I will not protest, just be careful around Black Mamba ok?
- I will.
- You took a massive weight from my shoulders right now...I feel so fucking relaxed...like wow,I feel on the clouds right now.
-Oh...I'm glad to help but I may had accidentally, relaxed you with my pheromones...
-Your what?
- We vampires are biopsychosocial predators, we have substances on our bodies that relax the victim for non violent feeding, its stronger on our saliva but our skin also can do it...and I touched you alot and...well..
- hahaha ain't you a swiss knife of tricks?
- Look,I'm sorry! I should have warned you before but its such a natural thing for me that I completely forgot!
- You caught me by surprise again with your vampire bulshit...but its ok this time, I'm fine with it...
- Really?
- Yeah, just hold me tight a little longer...I don't mind to be in the arms of a dangerous predator,I just wanna feel this safety mood a bit more, ok?
- of course my little lamb..."


Another piece I had a lot of fun working with, also the story was fun to write.

Just to give context Mikhail and their friends live in anarchist commune established in an abandoned apartment building, the place is quite run down, the walls are full of grafity and have all sorts of damage, but they do the best to keep everything clean and in relative order, its not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination but its much better and safer than the streets.The group has around 40 people, mostly young LGBTQ+ individuals who can't afford a house or got kicked by their parents,they are a rebellious group who sometimes don't agree much with each other, but they are all united by the necessity of keeping eachother alive, so they share resources and cooperate to keep the place livable.

"why would Danadriel, a once slave owner Baroness care for people like this?" mostly because she took a liking to Mikhail, also because she knows she need help to understand this world before venturing out alone, but she makes sure to tell a more sugarcoated version of her past.