How far would I travel to be where you are"
How far is the journey from here to a star"
And if I ever lost you how much would I cry"
How deep is the ocean' How much will I cry"
- Irving Berlin, "How Deep is the Ocean?"
In 1906, an earthquake of monstrous force struck the coastline north of the city, cracking earth and splitting sea and dropping the buildings built along the cliff side into the ocean. A week later, Simone Oceane turned one of the surviving structures into her haven, a hotel that had slipped into a cave made by the collapsing ground around it. At high tide the water hid the entrance in seafoam and waves and at low tide it was barely accessible, requiring a careful hike along crumbling rock and exposed rock faces. Sharks and stranger, more dangerous beasts filled the water, drawn to the blood spilled almost nightly. Ghouled servants moved in all the comforts a monster would want and protected her during the day. It was perfect.
She called it Hotel Atlantis and she had been living there ever since. A place where she could sleep in peace when the weight of age dragged her down for months or years. A place that no other could touch her. A place where she could hold court. A place near her true home, the ocean. A place to be her, unmolested. Even her enemies in the Lasombra left her alone while she remained entombed inside.
It was eccentric even by the standards of her clan. None ever visited, too afraid of being in the haven of a creature as old and enigmatic as Simone. Childer would stay only as long as necessary, uneased equally by the constant, rhythmic sound of waves, the alien eyed sea monsters that would slip into the flooded lobby, or the devoted, ageless ghouls who lived in shadows and the empty places inside the walls. Once or twice, when she had, by luck or political maneuvering, acquired a position of power within the Camarilla, she had held events in the hotel. The others whispered among themselves that she did it only to amuse herself on their discomfort.
They weren't wrong.
As the decades wore on, the hotel continued to shift in the earth, lilting to one side until the present, where one side of any room was almost 20 degrees higher than the rest. Simone never seem to notice and moved across the tilted landscape with the barefoot ease of a dancer.
She had been in the midst of a decade long depression when she met Gabriel and heard his sweet, sad songs. She had walked into the club, soaking wet and barefoot, bored and aloof, hungry to feel something. His voice reached her when nothing else could. His guitar was a heartbeat in her chest.
He tasted sweeter than wine ever could. They made love for days, locked away in her hotel beneath the sea surface. She drank of him and, when he was ready, he drank of her, too.
And for the first time since she'd moved in, she met another who was not afraid to be there.
Then that Shadow came and stole her light and she had raged inside her place beneath the sea, murdering man and ghoul and animal alike. By the time Gabriel had returned to her, she had been preparing to meet the sun, her antithesis in the sky.
You've come back to me, she said. I never left you, he said. Our enemies took you, she warned. Nothing can keep us apart, he replied. I love you, she said. I love you, he said.
Thus it was he came to live with her in the hotel beneath the sea. The first to stay, and the only one to warm the depths of her.
Thus it was for a long time. He would play, and she would sing, or dance, or fall into a state of happiness, unable to do anything but listen.
But the truth was that the ocean swallows all things in time, and soon, very soon, it would swallow him, too.
- Irving Berlin, "How Deep is the Ocean?"
In 1906, an earthquake of monstrous force struck the coastline north of the city, cracking earth and splitting sea and dropping the buildings built along the cliff side into the ocean. A week later, Simone Oceane turned one of the surviving structures into her haven, a hotel that had slipped into a cave made by the collapsing ground around it. At high tide the water hid the entrance in seafoam and waves and at low tide it was barely accessible, requiring a careful hike along crumbling rock and exposed rock faces. Sharks and stranger, more dangerous beasts filled the water, drawn to the blood spilled almost nightly. Ghouled servants moved in all the comforts a monster would want and protected her during the day. It was perfect.
She called it Hotel Atlantis and she had been living there ever since. A place where she could sleep in peace when the weight of age dragged her down for months or years. A place that no other could touch her. A place where she could hold court. A place near her true home, the ocean. A place to be her, unmolested. Even her enemies in the Lasombra left her alone while she remained entombed inside.
It was eccentric even by the standards of her clan. None ever visited, too afraid of being in the haven of a creature as old and enigmatic as Simone. Childer would stay only as long as necessary, uneased equally by the constant, rhythmic sound of waves, the alien eyed sea monsters that would slip into the flooded lobby, or the devoted, ageless ghouls who lived in shadows and the empty places inside the walls. Once or twice, when she had, by luck or political maneuvering, acquired a position of power within the Camarilla, she had held events in the hotel. The others whispered among themselves that she did it only to amuse herself on their discomfort.
They weren't wrong.
As the decades wore on, the hotel continued to shift in the earth, lilting to one side until the present, where one side of any room was almost 20 degrees higher than the rest. Simone never seem to notice and moved across the tilted landscape with the barefoot ease of a dancer.
She had been in the midst of a decade long depression when she met Gabriel and heard his sweet, sad songs. She had walked into the club, soaking wet and barefoot, bored and aloof, hungry to feel something. His voice reached her when nothing else could. His guitar was a heartbeat in her chest.
He tasted sweeter than wine ever could. They made love for days, locked away in her hotel beneath the sea surface. She drank of him and, when he was ready, he drank of her, too.
And for the first time since she'd moved in, she met another who was not afraid to be there.
Then that Shadow came and stole her light and she had raged inside her place beneath the sea, murdering man and ghoul and animal alike. By the time Gabriel had returned to her, she had been preparing to meet the sun, her antithesis in the sky.
You've come back to me, she said. I never left you, he said. Our enemies took you, she warned. Nothing can keep us apart, he replied. I love you, she said. I love you, he said.
Thus it was he came to live with her in the hotel beneath the sea. The first to stay, and the only one to warm the depths of her.
Thus it was for a long time. He would play, and she would sing, or dance, or fall into a state of happiness, unable to do anything but listen.
But the truth was that the ocean swallows all things in time, and soon, very soon, it would swallow him, too.