March 29th, 0:30am

Carefully, Fiona pushed the bottle of red she had snuk in through her secret door behind her desk and sank into her chair.

Her office, the highest room of the museum, the French windows behind her desk overlooking the gigantic hall, was one of her favourite places in the world. From her desk, a beautifully carved 19th century oakwoodpiece, she was able to observe the daily stream of visitors and employees making history come alive every day. In the middle of the wall to her right, surrounded by paintings of every Head Curator that has ever been, a door led to her secretary's office, Damayanti Pimplebottom. She was probably the most important employee of this museum, an establishment. To insiders, the true boss of them all. A fireplace with a suite of darkgreen leather wingbacked chairs dominated the wall opposite the windows, followed by a line of bookshelves on the left. The room would have had a large, airy feeling to it, if it had not been for the large, rectangular oakwood table underneath the wooden chandelier dominating the room. With the table, the room was as stuffed as a Christmas turkey. It's highback chairs offered room for 14 people and most of the staff meetings were held here, forcing Fiona to tidy it up regularly.
Well, technically, Mrs. Pimplebottom forced her to.

The historian pushed her boots off. The day had been longer than anticipated and even though she still had one appointment to go, her feet demanded her sneakers. "Oh yes," she sighed, blood finally flowing through her smallest toes again.  The bad part of her job: she wasn't allowed to wear sneakers and jeans anymore. Apparently it made an unprofessional impression. Whatever that meant and how her clothes said anything about her competence was beyond Fiona's understanding.

A short knock on her door interrupted her thoughts and she had only fragments of a second to hide the glass in her hand before the door opened.
"You shouldn't be here, Dama," Fiona lectured her secretary. "It is the middle of the night and you have been here all day. Go home." Damayanti was followed by a hovering pile of various parchments, sketches and books.
"And do what, wait for my death? I am 88 years old, girl, you don't get to tell me what to do," the tiny Indian snapped back and flicked her wand. The pile neatly organised itself on the table, thud thud thud.
"Now be so good and hand over that bottle of wine you try to hide under the desk from me, darling."

Why did she...How did she do that? The Head Curator grunted at the older woman, but got up and handed her the bottle nontheless. The secretary waddled to the armchairs, swollen feet quickly propped up on a stool. Fiona picked a second glass from the selves and handed it to her, her own glass now dangling out in the open. "Mr Vaillaincourt will be here any minute, Dama."
"I know. I made the appointment myself. And if you don't mind, I shall like to say hello."

"I suppose it must be fascinating to meet someone who is even older than you are. It is so rare," Fiona remarked, feeling a bit cheeky. Dama gave her an objurgatory look, but didn't say anything. Of course. It took a little more to set her off than a saucy Head Curator. She had buried even more of those than she had husbands. They came and went, the lot. Judging by her still leaking wound Fiona had brought back from the Middle East, this one wouldn't be any different. The secretary had helped renewing the bandage every 2 hours, each time suggesting to owl for Healer Marren. Or any healer, if the historian did not want to be treated by her ex- husband. But that stubborn girl had just knelt in front of her and refused, eyes stinging with tears from the pain that accompanied the removal of the compress.
Across from Dama, Fiona had already lost interest, the daily prophet in one hand and the glass thoughtfully resting against her lips.

Tristan climbed up the wide steps of the stairwell that would eventually take him to the offices of Fiona Lloyd. His polished Oxfords made no sound and he was a silhouette of varying dark shades against the Museum's warmer tones of stone or marble.  The black of his shirt flirted with that of his hair while his charcoal suit cut a neat figure. It was late for much of polite society. Early still for him: a good hour for errands before he checked into the Ministry for the rest of the evening.

The vampire knocked thrice before he pushed open the heavy door; his ears had given him warning of two heartbeats rather than one in the room beyond. His nose caught a twinge of something deliciously human underneath scents of old books, sweet resin, more contemporary perfumes.

"Miss Lloyd." A slight, polite little bow in the direction of the great table and then a softer nod towards the older witch with her propped up feet. "Damayanti," he held her gaze with a bit of familiarity before stepping further into the office. The door shut softly behind him.

This was not a foreign place to Tristan, who frequently consulted on the artefacts of his past century - there had been instances in the past when he had been able to verify the works of artists or writers of his personal acquaintance during the Belle Epoque. Tonight was another of such appointments... a diverting change from murders and prejudices on level four.

"How might I be of service to you young ladies tonight?" he asked as he approached the table, fingers grazing the surface idly.

Fiona lowered her paper as the knocking disturbed the almost silence of her office. "Mr. Vaillancourt, " she smiled, and got out of her chair, elimenating the distance between, "thank you for coming."

In her chair, Damayanti straightened. She lowered her feet to the ground, the flowing material of her beautiful sari swishing around her swollen feet.
"Tristan. It is such a pleasure to welcome you here again." Fiona raised her eyebrows. Did she just blush at the referring to her as a young lady?
Dama was the one who had suggested Tristan in the first place, they had known each other for a while. She had told Fiona how they had first met. It must have been her trainee years, when Damayanti had been young woman, yet unmarried and childless. How must it feel to her, seeing him unchanged?
The secretary herself carried the signs of a long life around for everyone to see. The round face wrinkled in eternal smiles, framing her eyes and mouth. Her thick long hair, once blacker than the night -blacker than Tristans, even- now shone in an almighty white-grey, setting off her dark hair and black eyes. Her body had grown shorter, stouter, bones getting heavier with the time they were carried around. Dama was as restless as Fiona herself, hardly sleeping, alive for her work and her insanely large family.
As far as the Head Curator knew, she had been married at least twice, given birth to 7 children and now collected grandchildren and greatgrandchildren like other people did stamps.

So here they were, staring into what felt like eternity. Tristan looked so young and flawless. Polished, with manners so sleek and a personality so distant, it was scary. He was almost twice Damayanti's age.
Time was such a funny thing.
Fiona had the tendency to see eternal life as a burden. All that changed with that bite, with the poison taking over your body to conserve it, was your eating and living habits. It trapped you within a (ideally) pretty, young, strong body, putting you on inivisible display. You lived to see the world, to see time passing. You can participate, be part of something, and yet...you don't belong. You don't belong, although you have been there before everyone else and will be there once they are gone. But you are not one of them. You can not take part in their every day life on their conditions. Do not get to live with them, age with them. Do not get to that point where you are okay to leave this world now, after a long, fulfilled life, when your time comes. Your time never comes. It has long gone. Gone in that moment your maker decided to make you his own, to end your life. Except not really.
So you linger. Linger and linger and linger. A guest in the world, a guest in historical happenings, a guest in people's lives. and then, after hundreds of years of lingering: Always a guest. A timeless witness. The only one who truly does not forget, who keeps stories alive and true. Vampires were the true historians. Those who do not tinge stories, or mingle them with personal touches, twisting stories through re-telling. They were there, they knew. They'd always know. And yet.
And yet....
"As always, you look very handsome," Dama beamed, "As always", she repeated, as if it had to be pointed out. Dearest Dama. A witness of her own time, in her own right. Whose time ran out.

Fiona sighed, reaching over the table to pull a diary from the pile of books and parchments her secretary had brought in earlier.
"I have asked you here today to help me even out irregularities in these documents, " she started, diving into business, before eternity made her head spin. "These diaries, letters and notes contradict each other and I would like to know whether the contradictions are based on different opinions of the happenings, are false or, in fact, fake. " Or, of course, something else entirely.
That was the good part about vampires. She did not have to guess the most likely scenario, trying to interprete the evidence and find a middle path. They could just ask how it happened.

       "As always, you look very handsome. As always."

The passing years had done little to dim Damayanti's smile, and Tristan ambled leisurely towards the woman to take her hand. He kissed it in thanks whilst the head Curator procured what work he had come here to survey. Contradictions. History was full of contradictions until some manner of context could be provided - and then what at first conflicted, would begin to corroborate.

Tristan released the secretary and turned back to Fiona with a thoughtful expression. He picked up the diary she had intended, lifting up the back of his coat as he sat down in a chair across from her; his eyes remained on the open book. His lips were lost in a quiet and nostalgic smile.

Ah, yes, he recognised this penmanship.

"And the letters that contradict these accounts?" The vampire looked up curiously. "I know the writer, he dined frequently at Café de Flore with a mutual acquaintance..."

He laid the open diary on his lap, fingertips absently tracing the rough textures of the paper - so marred it was by splotches of ink and spilled drink or the odd flower pressed patiently between pages. A true Romantic. And like many Romantics, a compulsive liar. "I think you will find this diary more accurate and certainly less embellished than the correspondences. He spun the most fantastic tales whenever he wrote, could never believe the man."

"What is the significance of it to your work on the era, by the way?" Tristan asked, more interested in what the Museum might be putting together from the Belle Epoque.