April 24

[wholeworldoutthere]

Right on the heels of her relief, restlessness seems to steal into Caroline. Klaus has absolutely no problem following her to the holodeck, if that is what she wants. They take Star, too, because the wolf has earned the right to run around the countryside, after spending so long in a cramped space with so many humans, and not mauling any of them.

They lock the door once they're inside, and since Caroline seems to hesitate which simulation to run, Klaus speaks up. "Computer. An isolated village in Eastern Europe. Twenty-first century Earth." That way Star can run as much as he wants, and they can have a feast if Caroline feels like it.

Klaus certainly feels like it.

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[wholeworldoutthere]

Klaus hadn't needed to feed quite as much as Caroline, and he especially didn't want to be full if they were going to hunt, no matter how much of a fake hunt it would be. The slight edge of hunger felt right, so he only drank one blood bag, then waited for her as she drank her fill.

When it came to their first kills, Klaus watched Caroline for a few moments, and was about to speak up, give her pointers, when a young woman showed up, probably drawn by the man's cry. Before she could scream, his hand was over her mouth and his fangs in her neck. He drank quickly, but not enough to kill her instantly, letting her unconscious body drop the ground and die there.

"Messy," he answered, even as he wiped the blood from the corner of his lips, now switched back to his normal face. "You want to be more careful. Don't make a move until you know exactly what you're going to do. Eventually, it'll become instinct." He doesn't have to think about it anymore, now that he's adjusted to his diminished strength and speed.

[brightestlight]

"I meant her," Caroline said, because she knew it was messy-- and it was something that she'd sort of gone back and forth on, that she'd been working towards, although she may have not gotten the right thing from it. This, for her, was okay because they weren't people. She could let all of those things that she's kept under tight control out because they're not people, they're data.

She hasn't really thought ahead, about how it's making it harder for her to be around people. That she's picking up behaviors here that are way more like Damon then they're like anybody else she knows except Klaus, and she wipes the blood from her chin with her sleeve. "It's different." She didn't tend to go outside what the holodeck perceived as 'America', and here, with how remote the village was... "It's like nobody will ever find us." And she's moving with him, slipping through the streets, trying to find someone else who's just as unlucky as the first pair.

[wholeworldoutthere]

It might be different, and they might not be people, but this, as far as Klaus is concerned, is a training ground. He rolls the two corpses into the nearby ditch with his foot, then comes back to Caroline, takes her hand and kisses her knuckles as they walk.

"I'd rather you treated this more like the real thing, love," he tells her, conversationally. "It wouldn't do to be unprepared."

[brightestlight]

"But it's not real," she said, walking beside him, her flip-flops crunching on the grass. "That's why I can do anything." She means it in not just a If I wanted, I could summon a jetski way, but in how she sees the world. That here, she can feed and hunt and fight.

She turns, walking backwards, looking up at him, and she's honest. "I couldn't do this with real people. Not... right now." And she means all of it, her voice low. "Show me." And she doesn't even know what she's asking. "You said you'd teach me, show me something else." Because her normal method in these sorts of places of tearing out throats - that wasn't the right way, and she knows it.

[wholeworldoutthere]

"Well, what did I show you last time?" Klaus asks, because if she's going to treat this like the training ground it is supposed to be, he is going to slip into the role of a teacher, starting with checking that she remembers what he taught her last.

Because that feed on the villager certainly didn't make it seem like she did.