It's done. It's finished. It's so perfect I could almost kill myself and it would function perfectly without me.


Sinjin's pen hovered over the words he just wrote. He did not intend for it to sound as morbid or ominous as it seemed to come off -- but as he reread it, he knew it was true. What Sin had created was a nearly perfect machine, a mockery of Ambrose's skill in business that Sin could not compare to, but could fake quite well.

Once upon a time, the kindred society in Rhy'din had been like any other: there was a Prince, a hierarchy, an organization that functioned just as well as any other city. The difference was that Rhy'din was not like any other city. Long before Sinjin was sired, even before he arrived in Rhy'din, that organization had fallen apart into messy groups, warring sects, and chaos. Ambrose never intended to correct that chaos; he was simply a controlling factor in it, along with others. Now, Sin found himself in a similar position.

And so the night was kind to Sin in these days, his days; the smell of death and stale blood no longer followed his shadow, or clung to his heels like a bad dream. No, this was his dream now -- and he watched it pass him by like an absent puppet master.

He dropped the pen on the page of his journal, unfinished, and abandoned the book for Salvador to find like he always did. The night was still young, still whispering his name like a needy lover; Sinjin glanced over his small apartment and turned to answer its call.