[Black Gold]
The snow came nearly up to Alucard's calves as he trudged down the sidewalk. It had finally stopped coming down, but the sky was still heavily overcast. He pulled his coat more tightly around himself to fend off the cold blasts of wind, his gaze scanning the signs of the shops and buildings that he passed.
This place felt terribly foreign, even after he'd taken some time to acclimate. Well, perhaps that was simply because it was foreign, a different time and place from what he'd been used to before awaking to a different world, his own people long moved on. Old rumors of the Black Court had brought him here, to this strange city that called to something inside of him as if he had been summoned. Was this Black Court really what he sought, or had all the names and tales become mixed up and corrupted over the many years? Were they even still here, or was this just a dead end?
The humans had thrived, at least. They were many now, far more numerous here than he had ever seen before, even now in this freezing weather, but with humans came mages and witches and wizards and others of particular talents, ones who claimed to be able to see the future, and it was these he sought out, recalling the way the Speakers had carried similar tales with them long ago. Perhaps they were ancestors of these modern psychics and seers. But to his dismay and bewilderment, the psychics had all turned out to be frauds so far, cheap entertainers pretending to see fortune and romance in his future, and that wasn't the sort of information he was seeking. The inquisitive and perhaps too casual mention of vampires nearly had him laughed out of one of the little psychic shops, although at least that was an improvement over being burned at the stake, so he wasn't complaining.
Well, there were other shops still to try and he wasn't about to give up until he had exhausted all of these avenues first. He had nowhere else to be, nobody counting on him or waiting for him or aware of his existence at all. He was entirely alone.
He tried futilely to stamp snow off his boots as he approached the next shop, a place called Orchid's Oracles, then let himself in, tracking a bit of the snow in with him despite his efforts. He only hoped that this psychic wasn't as great a stickler for appointments as the last had been. It hadn't occurred to him to call ahead. Phones were still a bit new to him, and he hadn’t yet figured out what a good half of the little picture icons on his mobile phone were even meant to do.
"Hello?" he said aloud, but his heart sank as he looked over the decor. It was just as gaudy and overwrought as the others had been--although the crystal ball looked a bit more authentic than the cheap plastic pieces some of the other shops had displayed, and certainly more expensive. That at least was a nice touch, but he already suspected that this wouldn't pan out any more than the others had. Still, might as well go through the motions. One never knew when a useful scrap of information might present itself. "I was hoping for a reading, if you could spare some time. I can pay..."
@studiocitypsychic
