|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:01 pm
 |
|
|
 |
Rosabel Marcellus
He looked more than a little pleased to be reunited with his shoes. It made her chuckle slightly. She was right, if he was truly rude, he would have scoffed, snatched them away without a word, something along those lines. Slightly curious, alright a lot, at why he was suddenly unshelving things, she walked softly towards him. Her eyes widened at the sight of the scroll, it looked like an incredibly old form of Latin, and it was going to be a chore to translate, be she could already make out a few snatches.
At his final comment she peered at him with her head turned slightly to the side. "Who ever said I was evil? Surely you know just because some thing is dark doesn't make it inherently bad. Even death is not really evil, just an uncomfortable fact. I'm not here to learn spells that can turn my enemies inside out, or enslave a nation. I'm just here to learn. Even when I worked with criminals I only really dealt in knowledge, copying books from private libraries illegally and such." She paused for a moment "Although aligning myself with those who would do such things has clear advantages." She looked back at the scroll and traced a bolded letter. "Knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Why the hell I'm still alive after all this time, why I completely suck at all other kinds of magic and where all this madness called life began. I'd like the answers someday. It's the only dream I have left to chase anymore" She stared back at him, her brown eyes soft, smiling slightly, "And reading is fun anways."
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 7:14 pm
|
|
|
|
Cain listened to her intently and finally gave her a nod of approval and a wry smile, "If only you were male, child..." he said softly then turned back to the scroll, "If that is the case with your magic, girl, then this scroll will help you more than you know. These are some of the very first blood magic spells ever made. Good for things like watering crops, healing, transportation and such," he explained to her, changing the subject from his first comment as fast as he could.
He paused for a moment and returned to where he'd pulled the scroll and removed a small leather-bound book and passed that over to her, "Here. The translation of the scroll in full and with no bindings on it. I did it myself when the scroll first arrived here. There is also information in there on the origins and complications of blood magic. So while you may not get the answer to where life originated, you will at least learn of the origins of your magic and find something that will help you," he told her with another of his wonderful smiles and left her with it as he returned to shelving the rest of the scrolls he had to take care of. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:01 pm
|
|
|
|
Rosabel Marcellus
Left with the scrolls, and a few new questions, Rose began to read. Ugh, Why did everyone find it necessary to speak in vague terms then? At least the spell were easy enough to under stand. The one for watering crops was incredibly interesting. Apparently blood diluted in water with the right spells could be used to lasso the water somehow, probably using the plasma's similarity to assimilate the particles... Who ever decided that magic was separate from science was dead wrong, and she had been kicked out of more than one bar in the twenties from laughing in a scientist's face and then following with less than polite comments. The sad part was that she never really drunk enough to become intoxicated, just a bit buzzed. Rose was not a fan of narrow minds.
Her mind, wandering now, what he exactly meant by "If only you were male" Was that his way of saying he would be interested in her if she was a guy, or if he was simply longing for a bro to help him out around the library. Hmmm. Maybe this was a sneaky way of putting down women in general? He was probably rather old, he could still be holding onto traditional beliefs of women being trophies. Rose couldn't see the third one at all, his tone didn't fit it. Well if he was looking for just a friend, she couldn't see any problem he could possibly have with her. So it may have been the first one... Hm. Well, something that doesn't happen won't particularly affect her in this case. Although she had to admit, he was gorgeous when he smiled. And he wouldn't age as she remained forever-nineteen. Right now, he seemed like the perfect choice for a Beau. There was the problem of his preference though.
A few more minuets mulling over her next move, she came to a conclusion. She was going to be his friend. Then once he had warmed up to her a bit more, she was going to make her move. This tactic had worked for her before, but she stopped using once she realized that if she ever met someone she truly loved, she wouldn't be able to let them go once they aged and died. It would've broken her heart to the point of... Well who knew? Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten much all day, and that her body was nearly running on empty. Fainting twice in one day did not seem appealing at all. Rose carefully rewound both scrolls and replaced them. There would be time tomorrow to look at them. Rose made her way to the exit, not spying Cain, before she stepped out she called "Thanks for showing me around and the scroll, and everything else. I'll be here tomorrow morning alright?" She paused in the doorway waiting for his reply.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:04 pm
|
|
|
|
 Cain did rest, even if he didn't sleep. When he returned the next night to the library, he returned to find another crate of books waiting for him to catalog and put away. He didn't think much about it, he simply got to work, taking this part slowly to make sure that he didn't make any mistakes.
Pull a book or scroll from the crate, write down the title and author, set it with others of it's kind to be put up when he finished. It took him hours to do and he delightedly got lost in the work.
He even found a couple of books on blood magic for Rose and set them aside for her to look at. Now why was he thinking about her? She'd more than likely not return here. Well, she might to look at the books. Why did that bother him?
See, this was why he preferred to only get involved with men. They didn't really care what he did or how much attention he paid to them. They didn't nag him about not feeding or sleeping or cleaning up his rooms. They were there for a short period of time and they left to head on their way. No problems, no complications.
Women made things complicated. They wanted romance, pretty words, attention... Things he just wasn't good at.
By the time his mind got that far, he realized that he'd finished cataloging the books and had even put a few of them up. Well then, that was a nice bit of information. Apparently he could think and work at the same time. Who knew?
He allowed himself to work for a bit longer then finally took a seat in one of the plush chairs in the sitting area so that he could think better.
His introspection was interrupted, though by someone clearing their throat and he looked up to see Dancer and Dev standing in the doorway and frowned at them.
They were some of the very few people that remembered that he was still around and were actually his main blood donors. Well, Dancer was. He still wasn't sure what to do with Dev. At his frown Dancer spoke up, "I can't this time, Cain. I'm under orders not to donate for a month, at least. So Dev has graciously offered to take my place for the moment," he explained in a soft voice as he remained standing.
Alright, that only confused him even more and he turned his frown to Dev who grinned at him, "Don't worry about it Cain. I won't take it personally. I know I'm not your type. I'm currently trying to entice a certain lovely pale vampiress and until she's ready for me, I'm more than willing to donate for you," he said with a teasing grin, making Dancer roll his eyes at his best friend's quirks. But Dev's grin turned to a frown as he crossed the sitting area to kneel at Cain's feet, "Besides, I can see that you need it, Cain. You're beyond pale," he said softly to him, confusing Cain even more.
But Dancer crossed his arms over his chest and gave the vampire a glare that got him giving a shrug and a 'very well' before leaning over to the offered throat. His feeding didn't take long with the kick Dev's blood had to it and he was extremely neat in the process, completely at odds with his living style and appearance. When he was finished, Dancer was there to help Dev to his feet, "We'll see you next week Cain. Have a good evening," he said softly then left the vampire alone, both of them ignoring the woman they passed in the process. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:53 pm
|
|
|
|
Rosabel Marcellus
Rose felt much better after a long sleep and two solid meals, and although she wasn't up to full power yet (she was almost certain her red blood cell counts were rather low). She was currently wearing her favorite pair of charcoal twill trousers, looked semi-formal, but she could run and climb fences in them if she had too. Her collared blouse was, as was normal for her, stark white. It was easier to bleach that way. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she had covered up the scorch mark on the under side of the collar, by tying a deep blue scarf around her neck.
It was well and truly night now, she had awoken to what she had thought of as "dawn" but when she had emerged from the shower she had discovered that it was in actually a sunset. Then she had spent a few hours straightening things out with the staff. Then she had to eat... she was going to arrive later than she had anticipated. Oh well.
Now that she had thought about the matter, it might be easier to just be nocturnal for now on, considering the other inhabitants of the castle. If she ever came across something with a binding on it during the day, then she couldn't do anything about it unless she wanted to reenact yesterday. After a few days of sleeping with the sun up, she would get used to it.
Her leather loafers clicked slightly when she walked, down the path of the garden and neared the library. Someone was ahead of her, two someone actually. They were rather far away, maybe she would say hi once they reached the library, assuming that was where they were going as well. Rose lost sight of them around a bend, an continued her pace. A few minuets later, she was outside the library door, her hand reached out to open it, but it decided to grasp at air instead and withdraw. Rose suddenly realized that she felt very, very nervous. What for? A pretty librarian that probably wasn't interested at all anyway? Rose shook off those thoughts. She had a scroll to read. This time when she reached for the door, she opened it.
She walked around, looking for any sign of Cain. She was about to give up looking for him when Rose heard a soft discussion taking place. Rose peered in the discussion's general direction. There was sitting area that way. Curious to who was there, Rose peered out from behind a bookshelf to make sure she wasn't interrupting anything important. The conversation seemed over now anyway, she hadn't heard any more words as she had made her way over here.
Rose was not expecting what she did see. Cain, clearly drinking from someone's neck, and someone else who looked like they were waiting... Rose took a few step backwards, out of sight. Of course he had to drink blood upon occasion, he was a vampire. It didn't seem like something she should interrupt lightly, so she leaned against a book shelf and closely examined the fresco. They really were lovely, the soft swirls and bold outline... Who ever painted it was incredibly skilled. Another thought was half-way formed in her head when she heard a goodbye, and a promote that they would come again next week. The two others walked out, and she heard the door shut. They seemed to focused on wherever they were going to notice her.
Rose peeked out from behind the book shelf again, and saw that Cain looked un-splattered, actually not a single rumple in his clothes looked out of place. She stepped out of her hiding spot and neared him. She took two calming breaths and then spoke up" Hello. How are you today?"
((Edited due to erroneous punctuation)) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:14 pm
|
|
|
|
Cain blinked at her for a moment before finally coming back to himself. He always got a little lost when he fed and Dev really did have more kick to his blood than he'd been expecting. He licked his lips to wet them and focused on the woman nearby, finally registering that it was Rosabel and gave her a nod and a small smile. Not his gorgeous smile, but a nice one all the same.
"Ah, Miss Rose... You're probably back to look at the scroll," he said and stood up, fully intending to head to the back of the library and get the scroll for her. Unfortunately, he wasn't counting on things going wonky with his head int he process and he promptly fell flat on his face with a surprised 'oph'.
He pushed himself up a bit and frowned at the situation, "Damned Were... Should have warned me about that..." he muttered to himself as he pushed himself to his feet and tried again. This time, he was successful.
For all of about three steps. Then he pulled a repeat and gave in to a stream of muffled and mumbled curse words that probably would have sounded better if he'd put them into an intelligent order instead of how they just popped into his head. And they were all geared towards a particular shapeshifter who should have warned him about this little side effect.
But that wasn't what the problem was. Not really. He'd just forgotten about feeding the last few times so it had been a while and his body was just trying to adjust, by throwing his equilibrium out of whack... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:35 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 8:09 pm
|
|
|
|
Cain looked up at her for a moment in silence, wondering if he had any dignity left. Probably not. He finally gave a heavy sigh and gave her a nod, "Probably for the best, I would guess. I may be like this for a few hours. Happens every time I go too long between feeds. And that Were did have a bit of a kick to him that I wasn't expecting..." he said simply and accepted her assistance back to his chair.
Once seated back where he'd started, he was able to concentrate on the rest of what she'd said and frowned slightly, "Friends?" he asked her, as if the idea had never occurred to him, "I think I would like to have a friend... I haven't had one in quite a while now... That young boy over in Italy, I think... Friends for about three months... Clever lad too..." he got lost in memory briefly then shook it off and considered her again.
He finally gave her a small smile and offered his hand to her, "Friends it shall be, Miss Roseabel," he told her softly, hoping that he could get through this part of his evening without injury. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 12:50 pm
|
|
|
|
Rosabel Marcellus
Rose lightly grasped his hand and smiled softly, and after holding it for a beat of silence, she let go. There was something pleasantly solid about having a confirmed friend in a new place. Well, it seemed that Cain was going to not be zipping around shelving books like yesterday. If this library was anything like any of the other libraries she had been in, there were always books to be shelved, cataloged, dusted, and innumerable other tasks that some with caring for books. Rose wondered when was the last time he simply sat down and read a book, cover to cover. She wondered what he liked to read, was he a sci-fi fan? A secret adorer of children's books? A partaker in the noble genre of non-fiction? Rose now had a slightly bemused look in her eyes from the image of him pouring over a pop-up book.
"Would you like me to get you a book to read while you recover from..." How had he put it? Drinking? Eating? No. Feeding? That was it. "Feeding?" Admittedly, she was slightly uncomfortable with the knowledge that he could potentially rip someone's throat out, but she was the one cutting herself constantly so she could manipulate her blood, so she really had no room to speak on the matter.
Now that her mind was back on vampire's diets, she wondered what blood tasted like to them. Rose knew the salt-and copper taste from having chapped lips, but vampires had much sharper senses. Perhaps she would ask him another day.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 2:25 pm
|
|
|
|
Cain raised an eyebrow at her, a slightly amused expression on his face as he sat back in the chair with one arm resting on the arm while the other tapped a finger against the side of his head. He knew curiosity when he saw it and knew just what she was dying to ask about.
"Yes, it's called feeding. And you can feel free to ask me anything you like about it," he told her simply, not realizing that when he was simply relaxing like this he actually looked quite handsome and much like the romantical vampires in some of the books on the shelves.
He shifted the hand against the side of his head to pushing his hair out of the way, wondering what had happened to his hair tie. He'd probably lost that at some point or completely forgotten to put it in. Either way, his current movement brought attention to just how beautiful his waist-length hair truly was.
He let his arm fall to the other arm of the chair and simply enjoyed relaxing for a moment, something he rarely allowed himself to do, "As for reading a book... I usually do that in my rooms during the day when I can't sleep. I actually have a very comfortable sitting room and plenty of books to simply enjoy from various subjects," he told her with a small smile that actually reached his eyes and showed her that when he put some effort into it, he had no problem drawing people to him. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 4:17 pm
|
|
|
|
Rosabel Marcellus
Rose bit her lip to keep from all of her questions from spilling out at once. During the brief pause she took to gather her thought, she noticed how long his hair really was. Although she didn't normally like long hair on guys, it did suit him incredibly well. The thought was pushed from her mind almost immediately, she had to keep her mind on track. Staring at him for ten minutes probably wasn't going to get her questions answers. "Is it hard? To bite into someone? Err... And what does blood taste like to you? Also, what did you mean exactly by "kick"? Like Bourbon "kick" or a physical "kick-in-head" kind of kick?"
Hm. Looks like her strategy to keep her questions under control failed. Rose rocked back on her heels, he certainly was kind to answer her questions. A great many people normally brushed off her questions and ignored her. It was rather aggravating when they did. That was one of the reasons she liked books so much, as long as they were unbound, they would talk.
It seemed to be a bit rude to suddenly ask so much though... According to the her etiquette lessons, conversations were supposed to be exchanges... and right now he was poised to give more than he was going to receive... It would be wise to re-establish some sort of balance soon.
"Uh..If you have any questions for me, I'll gladly answer them as well!" There. That was better, even if it likely made her seem a bit juvenile. It was better than a rude one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 4:33 pm
|
|
|
|
Cain gave her a small laugh over her enthusiasm and waved her to a chair to sit down, "I really don't mind answering your questions. It isn't hard for us to bite. When we do so, the fangs sink in easily and relatively painlessly. Those we feed from usually feel no more than a brief sting. As for taste... Well, that depends on who we feed from and on the individual vampire. let me put it this way... That Were I just fed from, Dev, isn't my usual donor. The man who was with him usually is, Dancer. Dancer is able to feed vampires on a regular basis because he isn't human either. I won't tell you what he is, that would be rude to him and fairly complicated to explain. But to me his blood tastes salty and has a tingle to it that usually only comes from magical beings or those able to wield magic. Dev, however, tasted more wild, much like Bourbon, in a way, and can be just as intoxicating," he explained to her easily.
He truly had no problem answering her questions and offered a smile, "To tell you the truth, I like answering your questions. They're important ones and I'd rather help dispel ignorance than to see you fall into the pitfalls so many humans fall into from it," he added, hoping to encourage her to ask him more. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 5:18 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 6:25 pm
|
|
|
|
Cain smiled at her enthusiasm again when she bombarded him with questions. But he did his best to answer them anyway.
"Alright, I'll do my best here. Keep in mind that your answers will vary from vampire to vampire. There are many different kinds of us. Some of us can eat solid food. I can't, though I can take in drinks like coffee and such. I cannot fly, though I can move fast enough to seem to do so. I cannot paralyze anyone by gaze, though there are some with that ability. Garlic is actually a healthy additive to any dish. It only stinks in great quantities. Knots are no problem, certainly not a distraction, just an annoyance. I cannot shift form at all, though there are vampires that can manipulate mist or shadows and make you think they actually changed form. Vampirism simply evolved into being about the same time that humans evolved into fully upright beings and evolved from there just as humans did. Some vampire races are actually able to have children, though the children are born human and reach a certain age before they simply shift to a different biology. No idea why they happened, they just did. You know as well as I that any being can cause a plague with the right knowledge to do so, so that isn't a fair question. Some vampires do have an affinity for certain animals, they call it an animal to call or something like that, but I do not. I do however like cats on an individual basis. It takes more than just a bite to make a human a vampire and does include a blood exchange," he answered her as clearly as he could, taking each question as she'd fired it at him.
He actually surprised himself at being able to answer her questions in a reasonable order without sounding like an idiot in the process. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
