Saturday, 1 November 1800. 5:00 a.m.
sitting room

Amy looked up from Communications with the Fae as the grandfather clock chimed the hour. She glanced around the room. The only people left in here were Carid, who was still huddled in a corner with some large black tome, and Carleigh, who was slumped in the chair on Amy's right. She looked as if she was sleeping.
Amy smiled to herself at the irony of waking someone up in order to tell them to go to bed.
"Carleigh." she said softly, touching the Ventrue's shoulder. "Carleigh. Wake up, it's almost dawn."
Carleigh's eyes fluttered open. "Wh-what?"
"You should get up to your room. It's almost morning. That goes for you too." Amy said the last part over her shoulder in the general direction of the Tzimisce.
Carid grunted, barely looking up. Amy didn't press the issue. Why should she care if the girl wanted to stay there until the sun turned her into a pile of smoldering ash? But it struck her as odd that the room didn't have some sort of covering for the windows. Hopefully the bedchambers had better defenses.
Carleigh pulled herself up, smoothed out her hair and dress, and cleared her throat. "Well, I had best go advise the others to get upstairs...." she said, turning to go.
"Right." Carid snorted. "Because we all need to be told to get in out of the sun. Never would have figured it out without the help of the illustrious Ventrue. Oh, how does the Sabbat survive without their influence?"
Carleigh realized that she found herself ignoring more statements than she acknowledged lately.
Amy showed no reaction whatsoever to the statement, but she could see the Tzimisce's point.
Carleigh strode out of the room, trying to look awake. She noticed several of the bags still at the foot of the stairs. Well, it probably made more sense to deal with unpacking when they had a whole night to work with. She set about checking the downstairs for anyone who had not noticed the time.
Amy entered the hall a few minutes after Carid, stealing a glance behind her at the still immobile Tzimisce. She shuddered at the idea of living in the same house with one of the fiends. But from what Carleigh had said, Amy got the impression that the fourteen of them would be dispatched throughout world on various missions at different times. So hopefully she wouldn't have to see much of the Tzimisce. She shouldered her bag and ascended the carpeted staircase to see just who she would be seeing a lot of. She had managed to get a pretty good impression of all the members from Carleigh's little speech earlier, so she felt she was ready for anything.
She was so caught up in wondering about that that she didn't notice the thing on the stairs until she realized she was falling.
Amy barely had time to cry out in surprise before her chin came in painful contact with one of the higher steps. Thanks to the angle of the staircase, all her belated attempt to catch herself did was jar her wrists and send her bag tumbling back down the stairs.
She lay sprawled there for a few moments, trying to make her brain process what had just happened.
She remained in that rather ungraceful position until the sound of laughter emitting from somewhere under her left leg got her attention. She twisted around even more ungracefully to find at the source.
The same face that had so frightened Carleigh grinned back at her. "You fell up the stairs." Alectz said as if it were just the grandest thing in the world.
Amy stared at her, speechless. Finally, she managed a single word.
"WHY?!"
Alectz stared blankly.
"Why are you here?!" Amy tried again.
Alectz shrugged. "It's the thirteenth step." As if that explained the secrets of the universe.
Amy stared for a few more moments. Then she realized that she would never understand even if she tried for a hundred years. She disentangled herself from Alectz's still unmoving body and went downstairs to collect her bag. After doing so, she hurried back up the stairs, this time careful to avoid any obstacles.
Alectz lay there grinning. This was such wonderful fun.
"You know what's really fun." a voice below her said.
Alectz flipped around to see Michaela standing beside the staircase, looking up at her through the banister.
"Covering yourself in mud then sitting completely still by a road and watching to see how many people don't notice you there." the Gangrel finished with something like a smile.
"If you sit completely still, half the passersby won't notice you even if you strip and paint yourself orange." Alectz grinned.

Still slightly perplexed by the incident on the stairs, Amy walked down one side of the hall looking for her clan name. It hadn't taken her too long to figure out that that was how the assignments were to be determined. It seemed their identities really had remained secret.
She had understood from her elders that the clan representative's identity was only to be known by the rest of the team and the panel of elders that appointed him or her. She could guess why. There were those among all the clans who thought this alliance was just a creative way of committing treason and betraying their clan's secrets to opposing sects. It was for that reason that most of the Kindred world didn't even know about the formation of this group.
Amy had checked the nameplates three times before she realized she was looking on the wrong side of the hall. She raised a hand to her brow, mentally chastising herself for being so scatterbrained. Maybe she just needed some rest....
"Are you alright?"
Amy opened her eyes to see the Nosferatu standing-or rather, squatting- in the open doorway before her.
She shook her head. "I'm alright...I just need to find my room and get some sleep."
"Okay." Seldes smiled. "I think you're down that way." He indicated down the opposite side of the hall."
"Thank you." Amy said, returning the smile and starting in the direction he had pointed. A Nosferatu smiling tended to be a gruesome sight, and Seldes was no exception, but Amy had personally never met a Nosferatu she didn't like. Once you got past the exterior, they were really quite an amiable clan.
Finally, clear on the other end of the hall, Tremere. Amy sighed in relief and reached for the doorknob, almost forgetting to check the other name. She caught herself and looked up before she was completely through the doorway.
No. Oh no.
Above Tremere, another smooth brown plate reading......
Tzimisce.
"No. Absolutely unacceptable." Amy said with surprising calm. Inside, she was panicking. She couldn't share a room with a fiend! She'd be murdered in her sleep, regardless of Carleigh's stupid rules! Not only that, but she would be expected to travel and work with the monster! If her clan ever found out......
And then it hit her. The rooms had been assigned by their clans. The pairings had been assigned by their clans. And that meant....that for whatever reason, Amy's elders wanted her to work and live with a Tzimisce.
But...WHY?!
She stumbled into the room. Still in total shock, she collapsed onto the nearest bed. What was she going to do? How was she going to deal? Where was she going to put up her wards?! The door was in the center of the wall that separated the room from the hallway. That meant it would be impossible to shell off one side of the room without slicing the door in half. Maybe if she put some up around her bed....
Oh why oh why did this have to happen to HER?!

Saturday, 1 November 1800. 5:30 a.m.
front porch
"You have to come in!" Carleigh shouted.
"I do not!" the Gangrel yelled back.
"Look, I don't care if you can sink into the ground or whatever it is you people do! You're supposed to stay inside!"
"I can't sleep in houses!"
"Well give it a try!"
"NO."
"Please?" Carleigh pleaded, energy fading by the minute.
"Why is it so important where I spend the day?!"
"It IS important!" Carleigh wailed, her control utterly smashed by exhaustion. "I'm trying so hard to be a leader here and NOBODY'S listening to me! Why can't you people do one little thing that will give some hint of group solidarity?! Why can't you just cooperate?! Why must you all ruin my unlife??!!
Michaela blinked.
Carleigh, inches away from a sobbing breakdown, turned and ran back in the house. She darted into the first available space, which happened to be the sitting room. For a few minutes, she just stood there, collecting her wits. This was just the first night, she kept telling herself. Things will calm down tomorrow. You will be rested and better able to deal with this tomorrow. The first night is always the hardest.
Once she believed herself to be sufficiently calmed, she made to go upstairs, noting briefly that Carid had finally extracted herself from that corner. The Tzimisce was gone, supposedly upstairs. Now there was someone whom Carleigh would need plenty of rest to deal with....
She strolled out into the hall, feeling a little better, if still totally exhausted. Suddenly.....
"VENTRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Carleigh jumped about a foot in the air. She found herself standing at the bottom of the stairs and looking up at a Tzimisce who looked as if she was about to enter frenzy.
"NO! NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! I REFUSE TO WORK WITH ONE OF THOSE ACCURSED WARLOCKS!" Carid screamed, not loosing her original volume for a moment.
"What?!" Carleigh cried. "You mean...they put you and Amy together?"
"What INCREDIBLE perception!" Carid shouted, her sarcasm saturating the walls.
"What are you yelling at me for?! I had nothing to do with the assignments! But in any case, they can't be changed. You'll just have to deal with it."
"Deal with it?! DEAL with it?!"
"I'd like to see how you 'deal with it', Ventrue." the increasingly familiar voice of Sugar Kelly called from down the upstairs hall. "Take a look at your own assignment!"
'Oh, gods, please don't let me be paired with HER!' Carleigh prayed silently as she hurried up the stairs. Luckily, Alectz had moved somewhere else at this point.
She brushed past the still murderous-looking Carid and noticed Sugar leaning on one of the doors. The Ravnos pointed at the placard beside the door before standing upright and entering the door beside the one she had indicated.
Carleigh breathed a small sigh of relief. At least it wasn't Sugar she was rooming with. She stepped forward and took a look at the placard. Venture and.......Lasombra?!
"What the....." Carleigh murmured.
"That's what I'd like to know." Courtney was suddenly standing in the now open doorway. The Lasombra was glaring at her in a way that could have frozen hell over.
"So. Can the room assignments still not be changed?" Sugar challenged.
Carleigh gritted her teeth in anger. She knew perfectly well where this was headed. If she backed out on her own ruling now, and switched rooms...it would make her look like a weakling and a fool. She would lose all the respect of the others. And since they didn't have much respect for her in the first place, that was not a risk Carleigh could afford to take. She could not create a double standard.
"The room assignments will not be changed under any circumstances." she said calmly and with control. And through her teeth.
With that, she turned and walked past Courtney in to THEIR room. The rest of the occupants of the hallway-which at this time of morning was most of the group-stared after her, some with surprise, some with admiration, and in one case, with disgust.
Sharma shook her head and turned back into her room. Seldes followed her. After all, it was his room too. He had assumed that all the rooms would be gender coordinated; at least that was the impression he got when all the council asked about the representative was their gender. Not that he minded either way. People were people and a partner was a partner; it was all the same to him.
"That was pretty big of her." Seldes commented, closing the door behind him.
Across the room, the Assamite was drawing the large black curtains over the window. She let out a light snort as Seldes spoke.
"It would have been more impressive if she had been doing it out of honor instead of shame."
"What do you mean?" Seldes hopped onto his bed.
Sharma tied the curtains securely shut and turned to face him in the darkness. "She was merely responding to the Ravnos' challenge. Had she been alone and at her own will, she would have compromised the regulation." then after a pause. "She has no principles."
"You don't know that." Seldes, tolerant as ever, gently chided.
Though it was completely dark, he could see Sharma's outline moving towards her own bed on the other side of the room.
"I know." Sharma said with quiet assurance. "I know her kind all too well." That said, she lay down with her back to her roommate.
Seldes sighed quietly as he burrowed under the sheets. He was at least proud of himself for getting the Assamite to talk to him. But unfortunately, she seemed to oppose quite a few of his own views. Anyone who made generalizations like 'her kind'.....
But now he was generalizing. He didn't know Sharma. Perhaps the girl actually had some sort of history with the Ventrue. Personal injury was hard to forgive. Seldes knew that well enough himself. Sometimes he wondered if he was too idealistic; some nights he felt like the only Cainite in the world who believed in what he believed in.
But as his sire once told him, just because your friends don't agree with you doesn't mean you aren't right. Maybe there was someone else out there who believed that everyone could get along if they just gave each other a chance.
In any event, Sharma didn't seem to be that person. After a few moments of thinking about what she said and the way she had said it, Seldes was quite certain that she had a personal grudge against the Ventrue. A grudge that was making her miserable.
Suddenly, he had a brilliant idea. Just because Sharma didn't believe in the good of the individual now didn't mean that she never would. Seldes could teach her. Maybe make her understand. But not by telling her. That would never work. He would SHOW her that there was good in everyone. But even more importantly, he was determined to help her let go of whatever happened in the past that plagued her so much even now.
Of course he knew damn well that Assamites were hard nuts to crack. That was fine with him. Idealist or no, he was going to try to convert her to tolerancism (his 'religion'). And besides. Your roommate was your partner. You couldn't get rid of them. He would be her friend whether she liked it or not!