<span class="bbc_u"><strong>Name</strong></span>: Narrator/Alexander Shaw/Daeva Twins<br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Location</span></strong>: Alexander's Manse, In Route in Atro City<br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Time</span></strong>: 11:30 p.m.<br/><strong><span class="bbc_u">Tagged</span></strong>: *intro post, tags all*<br/><br/>It was a half-moon that night in Atro City. The half-moon symbolized balance, stability, the fragile truce between darkness and light hovering in the ethereal void of the stars. But nothing was balanced in Atro City, and it had not been in balance for a long time. The moon was bringing out the worst and the best in all the residents of the city, from the neon entertainment districts that included all the cities clubs and hotspots to the refined wealthy residential neighborhoods that contained homes like miniaturized castles to the ghettos and slums that reeked of stale booze and decay.<br/><br/>Occasionally there was litter, and sometimes passerby, curious enough to read a newspaper, saw one in particular, a horrible gossip-mongering paper, the Inquisitorial, drifting through the streets. Such papers were filled with fantastic stories, stories with headlines like:<br/><br/><strong>Shocker: Woman Claims a Beast Made Her Lay Eggs</strong><br/><br/><strong>Giant Wolves On The Loose! What To Do When They Attack!</strong><br/><br/><strong>Blood Bank Robbed By Group Suffering From Porphyria</strong><br/><br/><strong>Woman Claims a Giant Labyrinthine Hedge Houses Homeless Citizens</strong><br/><br/>People who read it put it down and didn't think about it. Strange things happened all the time, and there  were no shortages of crazies willing to say anything to make a quick buck from the tabloids. These same people walked and moved in a dark grey city with towering skyscrapers that flashed dark glass windows, old historical houses that seemed more haunted than real, businesses in need of repair or businesses so sharp and efficient they seemed out of place. And there were some people who did not overlook those headlines, who knew them to be real. They were alone and isolated, thought just as bad as those people who made the headlines.<br/><br/>The gargoyles on each building overlooked it all, those silent stone statues.<br/><br/>In the residential section, in a beautiful manse that flourished under the gentle glow of golden electrical lights, Alexander Shaw lingered.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Alexander's Home</div><div class="spoiler_body"><div align="center">(http://www.vacationhomerentals.com/get_property_thumb4-64070.jpg)</div></div></div><br/>He was on the third floor in his private study, sitting at a desk made of solid white pine in a black leather office chair. His silvery grey hair fell into his face as he looked down at the invitations he had just filled out.<br/><br/>It was time to host Elysium. Recent hostilities meant that he was going to have to open Elysium meeting to his potential non-vampire allies, something he loathed. It risked breaking the Masquerade, but at the same time, his hold on power was too precarious not to invite allies to Elysium, the neutral vampire territory, for discussion and debate. He could not risk upsetting the pack that followed the spirit of the Queen Ant. Alliances with werewolves were unheard of, and this particular pack understood that it was either ally with the vampires or risk the whole of Atro City being annihilated by its foes.<br/><br/>Prince Alexander ached. He sometimes wished he was still in torpor. He called for his twin Daeva servants, sweet vampire women who had dark black eyes, alabaster forms, and never spoke. These enforcers would deliver his invitations to Elysium to the werewolves, to the changelings.<br/><br/>The changelings. Another baffling problem. Shaw instinctively disliked a race of people who could flee the normal world in favor of the Hedge, their world between the worlds, and not be followed. Vampires dared not follow changelings into that twisting dark realm of the Fae. Their blood was poison, their powers alien and foreign, and they were never as they seemed.<br/><br/>He said, “Deliver them, twins. And ensure that my court knows that we hold an official gathering in Elysium in three nights. They are all expected to attend.”<br/><br/>The two women, dressed identically in skin tight leather suits, one suit black, the other white, nodded. They were almost mannequins or dolls, really. It was how Alexander thought of them. He had acquired them nearly a century ago. They took the filled out invitations and left. The invitations included one for the leader of the local werewolf pack, James Strongvoice, and one guest of his as well as the Autumn Court ruler, the Lord of Fallen Leaves.<br/><br/>He also called out as the twins left, “And bring me Garmr. I have a job for him involving a dangerous huntress I've been keeping tabs on.” The twins were well away as he called.<br/><br/>He was left alone in his study. He got up, shaking off the ennui and boredom he felt, boredom that was never sated unless he heard the delicate pain of others around him. His suit briefly reflected the study's dim lights. Things were getting complicated. He would need to hire help, help not affiliated with his court. Human patsies were available all the time, but the prince wanted something special, something consistent and lasting. His court members would have to aid him. Ryan Preston had sound judgment as his Seneschal, and could select an appropriate human to act as an unaffiliated hand of the court. Perhaps Delphine could assist him in picking out some exceptional creature. They both were to see him tonight regardless, so he would be sure to tell them.<br/><br/>The twins made their way to deliver Elysium invitations, the white-clad one to the vampires, and the black-clad one leaping out into the harsh cold night to deliver to the werewolves and changelings.<br/><br/>The black clad twin, pale and refined, silent as a whisper on the edge of an oiled blade, glided through the badly lit streets of Atro. She was making her way to the territory of the pack. She found the business section of the city, dominated by those tall skyscrapers and retro-office buildings, where the pack her master allied with made it's home.<br/><br/>She never saw the massive beast, a branded wolf-like monster, rise behind her with superhuman speed and rip her head off, tossing it in a nearby raining gutter. The blood trickled down into the storm drain, and the invitations fluttered out of the doll-vampire's hands, carried away on the wind.<br/><br/>Elysium was in three days. Who would find the invitations now?<br/>