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There are stories passed among the Los Angeles Kindred of the Moon and her Night. Two figures—a pale beauty and the blackest fury—wander Griffith Park in the evenings, one so rarely seen without the other when they are even seen at all.
There have always been whispers of the White Witch of Griffith Park—a hermit blood sorceress hidden away by the columns of the observatory—but now she is accompanied by her Shadow. He is a steadfast companion. When the Witch is called to court, the invitation always extends to him.
They call him the Shadow, for even in the dim light of the moon, he so rarely leaves her side. A figure cloaked in darkness following in the wake of an angel.
They are not the public power couple of this city. They do not stand on high, King and Queen on this chess board of a map. They leave that to other Kindred, to the Barons of Hollywood and the Valley and beyond, the ones who crave adoration and attention. Instead the Witch and her Shadow lurk in dark corners, in quiet spaces meant only for them.
There are those that insist that her Shadow is not Kindred at all. That he is some fierce demon she unearthed and tamed. That she bound him to her will with fire and blood. They say he hides his face under hoods and his body under dark layers not because he bears the telltale marks of the Nosferatu, but because of the chain-link firebrand scars seared into his arms from her magic.
Still none can confirm or deny this theory for none have seen the skin that lies beneath his dark armor. None but her, of course.
Most dismiss the thought as ridiculous conjecture. There are still those who survived the war against the Mad Prince and some of them are not shy in recounting what they saw during that bloody time. They remember the Night in all his terrible glory—how he killed the Prince’s Sheriff with a single swing of his blade, how he bit the Lasombra Scourge and got himself strung up on the Hollywood sign for his trouble, how he did a dozen other things that sound too reckless and outlandish to be true. But the survivors remember, even when the young ones do not believe, even as these wayward fledglings whisper “demon” as if it were a far more reasonable explanation.
There is no doubt that the Witch is Kindred, though. There are those that may suggest she is an angel or a fae or simply a night-bound mage, but the flash of her white fangs quells those rumors before they get far. She has a long history, after all—far longer than her Shadow’s—and the legends cannot obscure it all.
Some whisper of a blood bond between the two.
Some claim the Witch cast a spell on him, in every meaning of the word. They swap tales of ancient magic, of research into hidden blood sorcery used to break the curse of her clan. They imagine crimson vitae dripping from her wrist onto his snarling lips and insist she bound this monster to her, made him her personal protector against the dangers of the night.
(Those who tell these stories never seem to pause to question why a Tremere powerful enough to enact such a ritual would ever need the protection of a single, stealthy Nosferatu with a very large knife. In their awestruck wonder at a dark and twisting tale, they do not think to ask the obvious.)
Others claim it is the other way around. They say the Shadow—ugly and wretched as he is—met the Witch in a time of war and was entranced by her beauty and her power and her knowledge. That he longed for her secrets, wanted to keep and to claim her, that he found a way to make her drink his blood—by some clever trick or brutal force or sheer desperation—and now she is his, forever.
(They never stop to think she might have drunk from him willingly, if she drank at all. They never pause to imagine an attachment that does not stem from possession.)
And a few whisper that they have a truly rare connection: a mutual blood bond. That they are utterly devoted to each other, neither truly subservient but each still wanting nothing more than to keep the other safe.
Most Kindred scoff at the thought, assuming these stories are some sick joke. What fool would bind himself so willingly to a Tremere? What imbecile would give up the advantage of a devoted Nosferatu ghoul? Not in this city, not on these nights.
But then they see the way the Shadow leans into her without conscious thought or how the Witch reaches for him at the most mundane of moments and their certainty wavers.
There is a tenderness between them so rarely seen these nights and that alone is something to be remarked upon. There are even a few vocal Toreador who insist they make a striking pair: wandering in darkness, hands clasped tight together in the night, the bringer of death and his lady adorned in flowers. There is a poetic beauty to it, they say.
So few know their names anymore—so few think to ask—but some swear they’ve heard him mumble “starlight” against her pale skin, like a prayer and a promise that he will never stop striving to reach. Others claim they’ve heard him call her “little moth,” but when they mention how she laughed—soft and bright and teasing as she wrapped her slim white hand around his arm—no one believes them anymore.
What she calls him is rarely mentioned, though a few Kindred say they’ve heard her say “my love,” as she strokes his back, the pet name almost inaudible beneath his own snarling growl. Perhaps it is only meant to placate him, to calm his low rumbling anger when the machinations of the L.A. court wear his patience thin. But perhaps it means something more.
And there is a Brujah—with long dark hair and an old warded jacket—who holds a permanent seat at The Last Round, who will laugh late into the night as she tells the other Anarchs what she knows. She says the Witch calls her Shadow “lovely” and “sweetheart” and “steady.” Even when those gathered around her laugh and call out her obvious lies, she simply smirks and turns away. Their doubt means little to one who lived the legends.
Most call the Witch just that and little else, though whether it is out of respect or fear isn’t always clear.
They are not so kind to him.
He is the Shadow and the Darkness and the Blade, but he is also the Deathbringer and the Wretched and the Leech. Epithets cast in hushed and disgusted whispers, accusations of something far more wicked left half-formed as they fall from cold lips.
Every Kindred seems to know someone who knows someone who saw a young and foolish fledgling call him the Leech a little too loudly during a gathering in the heart of the Valley. They claim she all but floated through the crowd to stand before the child. Some say she growled—low and dangerous enough to rival the Night himself—others insist they saw lightning playing at her fingertips. All are certain she was displeased and the Shadow’s clawed hand upon her shoulder was all that stopped her from starting a fight no fledgling could hope to win.
And rumors still spread that she looked the young Kindred in the eyes, her own bright and blue and sparking still, and simply said, “He is mine and whatever else he may be is of no concern to you,” before sweeping back through the crowd.
They are feared and admired and kept at a distance, these two undead demigods of Griffith Park. They have each carved out their shared domain and no one dares challenge them for it, not when stories of burning lightning and blades in the dark follow in their wake.
But the stories that surround them leave out so much.
The stories do not tell of the way they cuddle close together in an underground library to spend countless nights in peaceful companionship. They do not speak of the way she plays with his hands and talks of the stars when she is awash in a delicious haze of altered blood or the way he can spend hours running his long fingers through her hair as she reads aloud in Latin. They do not tell of the records that fill her haven with soft music as they dance together or the broken coffee table that he tripped over as they fumbled their way to the couch, too busy undressing to look where they were going. They do not mention the stack of books on their bedside table or the way she giggles when he kisses down her neck.
And there are stories that would never be told even if they were known, stories that will never mesh well with the legends whispered among the Kindred of L.A.
They may discuss how the Moon can bring herself to kiss the Night when he looks as he does, but they will never speak of a first kiss—sweet and hesitant in the unknown labyrinthine tunnels that hide below Griffith Park; a prelude to a night spent studying the occult and testing the boundaries of touch before two bodies climbed into a too small bed to spend the day together. They will never speak of all the kisses that followed after, of the exploration and discovery, the warm desire and want and hunger that built between these isolated beings.
They may whisper of ghouls and blood bonds, of binding magic and rituals—imagining silver chalices and vicious teeth bared under the full moon. But they have no knowledge of the way she moans his name when his fangs sink into her or the way he purrs against her neck as he drinks. No one was there to witness their first experiments in feeding, the awkward fumbling of hands and mouths and too much clothing in the way, the laughter that followed when he bashfully licked her wounds closed and told her she was beautiful.
The legends that surround them speak of triumph and power, of tragedy and darkness, and perhaps, if they are being charitable, of lust and desire. They do not tell stories of softness, of affection, of comfort in these dark nights; and yet…
And yet there is her hand in his as they stand in the dark corners of the Valley Baron’s attempted Elysium. And yet there is the scent of flowers that clings faintly to his dark shroud even when he is away from her side. And yet there is their shared silhouette against the night sky, black and white forms with their foreheads pressed against each other.
And yet there is love, even among the damned, even among the cursed and the wretched. There is the Moon and the Night, the Witch with her Shadow, willing to wear whatever titles the world bestows upon them, as they face the endless night together.