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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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 Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 9:50 pm
(pg. 48-49 Order 14: Show Must Go On)
Ameleia, long resigned to drinking animal blood, took a packet of it from the Island stores and a second for Jan. The paladin, newly turned vampire, would need the nourishment if he was going to recover his mental stability. The irony was it was the need for blood nourishment that threatened his mental stability. Ameleia's own life had gone this course for two long months after she'd first been turned. Her brother-by-blood, Bowen, had had to physically restrain her from the dawning sun more than once.
With a gentle nudge of the past back into itself, the elder vampire left the stores for one of the many furnished private rooms of the underground complex.
Jan sits in his room, knees to his chest, curled up sitting in a little ball on a chair.
... why did this happen to me? Where was my mistake made? I've nowhere to go, to be safe, to call home anymore... I don't like it, but I'm still existing... but my soul has faded now... what keeps me going? Why am I still here? Why must I carry the bane of demonsblood!?!?
"Jan? I've brought what we both need." She hoped that her presence, her many years of living with the same feelings he was currently experiencing, would help smooth his years as hers had not been. Bowen had been a dear friend, one she missed deeply, but he could never have understood her grief over the loss of her human life.
Jan mutters something into his folded arms, but does not look up, nor reach for the blood.
"Drink. We both need it." Emphasize their bond, emphasize that she understood what he was going through. "Marie has laced it so it will last far longer than even human blood would. It is animal blood from the same animals we ate as humans." She puts words to action and tears the corner of her own pouch, drinking the blood down. In hundreds of years she's stopped from showing her distaste, but now allows a semblance of that to come through for Jan's sake.
A vehement negatory shake of the head, a hungry whimper, and predatory eyes in the presence of food... that is all Jan manages or shares.
"You don't have to hunt it, your not faced with human blood, please drink. You can't die. Either you just can't or I wont let you via the sun, so drink." She takes a deep breath, "I want to know more about why you were turned. I need to you strong enough to talk about it."
A pained, hungry, vehement, and simple shriek:
"I won't drink blood!"
And he buries his head in his arms.
"Jan, please. Jan, you have drunk this before. When you first came here." She kneels beside his chair. "Please trust me. I don't want to hurt you or your soul." She swallows, no more than it already has been.
A vehement shake of his head, Jan continues to try to refuse.
"IdunwannaIdunwanna I DON'T WANT TO!!!!"
He stand up suddenly, shouting the last, sending the chair crashing into the wall, regardless of the fact that he was sitting in the middle of the room.
"...Aaaaaaiiigh...!"
He falls to his knees, involuntairily crying at his situation... crying... blood tears.
I don't want this curse! I don't want this unlife! WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEEE~!
He leans back, almost sitting in seiza, and yells to the ceiling and anything that cares to listen... a long, baleful, sad, soulful, soulless wail... and then collapses in a heap on the floor, sobbing.
... blood tears... blood... tears.... gwaaaaah~...
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Posted: Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:16 pm
(pg. 49 Order 14: Show Must Go On)
Ame tries desperately to recall how Bowen had helped her. The problem was, as vehemently as she'd tried to refuse the curse, she had reacted differently than this poor man. The humanity left in each of them determined that their personalities would be different. How to help him was not necessarily how she was helped.
He was a modern man, would that make a difference? He was religious, most of the problem, and she could relate to that. But, so different in hundreds of years. Besides, the creature was in no shape for a theological discussion. To force him to drink wouldn't work. To coax upset him. Maybe introducing him to others, such as Marie and Dustin? Friends, fellows he could find goodness in. To see the other side of the demonic vampire. It was something that had taken her years to see. She'd hated herself for decades, if not longer, and he likely would as well.
Dustin! Please come and help our new arrival. Your sense of present day humanity is needed. You can relate to a man of this time better than I. Please help us.
She would begin with Dustin, the playful scamp. Marie, the hard working thinker could wait for when Jan was calmer.
While she waits for Dustin's response or arrival, she stays kneeling beside Jan, reaching out her arms to him if he doesn't push her away like the chair.
Dustin perks, 'hearing' his name
Ame? Y'mean Fr. Jan? What's up? And where you at?
Fifth door on the left, west wing hall. Follow my sense. The good Father is having understandable difficulty with what he is. He is a man of your times, not mine, perhaps he might be more open to hearing your words on the matter?
Ame wants to keep speaking to Jan, to sooth him and calm him, but she is at a loss for how to help at 2oth century Catholic priest outside of an intricate theological and philosophical discussion. She falls back on her birthright, the sounds and rhythms of her ancient druidic tongue. Incomprehensible, but imbued with the spiritual power of a bard, she lets her voice and intent, rather than exact words, reach out to Jan.
M'kay... on my way...
Dustin wanders the halls until he arrives at the room, knocking gently on the door.
Jan snaps his head up and crankily answers
"WHAT?!?"
Dusting blinks a few times, taking a moment
"..it's Dustin, Ame's friend..."
"It's Dustin, a friend, Jan."
Come in Dustin, and thank you.
"Please trust us Jan. We mean only to help."
Her ancient words form a prayer, something she has always sought comfort in in times of trouble, both physical and spiritual.
"...Dustin?"
Jan asks, not quite remembering, if he knew at all, who this one was... his memory and emotions were working quite contradictorily.
Dustin gently opens the door, enters, and shuts it again behind himself.
"Hello."
"A friend", Ame repeated, reassuringly. "Someone so much closer to your own time than I. I hope he might help you to live with yourself, as someone helped me when I was first turned."
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 6:44 pm
Fr. Jan snorts
"A friend? Can creatures like us even have friends?"
Dustin nods
"Of course. We're beings with feelings... just as we were when we were human, in that respect."
Jan considers this for a moment
"... I guess. But... we're... we... we're vampires."
"Indeed we are. But... just because something in our lives... or even our deaths or now un-lives has changed... that's no reason to quit... no reason to stop evolving, growing and learning. Ever-adapt. Like me!"
Dustin grins broadly
Fr. Jan chuckles momentarily
"... you're fun."
Dustin grins goofily and nods.
"I get that a lot."
"I imagine so."
Fr. Jan muses
"Uhm... Ame?" Dustin asks "... was there something specific I was needed for?"
His face registers slight confusion as to how, exactly, he was supposed to help.
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Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:32 pm
She looks at him strangely. Hadn't he heard her mentally explain that Jan was far closer to his era than she and thus he would be better able to relate and help the new vampire? If he was asking how he was to help, well, if she knew that she'd help Jan herself.
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:46 pm
Dustin ruffles his hair confusedly, his red longcoat rippling as he does so.
Subjects of interest and common ground... uhm... right... can't upset him... but have to get him to eat... He's religious... Christian, too... Catholic... but at least Christian... that makes us brothers in more than vampiric blood! Let's start there, maybe?
Dustin crouches down by Fr. Jan
"Hey... you're a Catholic priest, right?"
Jan looks up and glares at Dustin
"Was."
Dustin cocks his head sideways, looking slightly perplexed
"Was? Aren't any more?"
Jan snorts
"I'm a demon now. Nothing more."
Dustin looks at Fr. Jan in serious disbelief
"You are who you feel you are. Your inner you. Your... soul. Your feelings. Forget the world... forget what they say. Who are you?"
Jan tilts his head in confusion
"... who am I? Jan Flipinsteek. That is all I know for certain."
Dustin smiles
"A name is a good place to start. Names have and are... power."
He holds out a hand to Jan, smiling.
Jan smiles back-
He's friendly... not... not like a demon... then again... I never fought one like him... Heh...
-and takes Dustin's hand
Dustin gently yanks Jan up
"Hey, c'mon. Let's go for a walk. The moon's really pretty tonight."
Jan smiles... a small smile, but a genuine one.
"Alright."
Dustin smiles back
"Friends?"
Jan looks downcast for a moment
"... yeah. If vampires... demons... can be friends."
Dustin sighs and shakes his head in amusement
"Yeah."
Dustin waves to Ame as the two exit the room.
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Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:34 am
Ame gives Dustin a nod and a grateful smile as he walks with Jan. Then she sags against the nearest wall. Progress, even the smallest steps, thank God. She felt terrible for not being able to have better helped herself. Jan was, in a sense, her adopted child, much as she had been Bowen's. Ah, Bowen, she thought, were it not for him she likely would have walked into the sun her first morning as a vampire.
"Let me go!"
"No. Stop it! It's day, you need to rest."
"I don't want to rest, I want to see the sun!"
"If you go out there it's death. Final death! Don't you understand that?"
"I want it! I wont live like this! Let me go!"
He had wrestled with her, his superior years and habits having much advantage over her. She hadn't seen the sun that day. Nor had she the next, or the next or indeed any day after that for the past nineteen hundred years. Ame shivered at the imagined cold of her life's eternal darkness.
Bowen had helped her then, somehow made her want to keep moving, keep 'living'. She still hated what she was, but she was no longer suicidal, so to speak. Why couldn't she help Jan as Bowen had done for her? With such simple words, Dustin had pulled Jan off the floor and taken him outside to walk and talk as a new friend. She had considered Bowen a friend, why couldn't she reach out to Jan in the same way? Words did indeed have power, as Dustin had spoken. She knew this, had known this in her life as druidic woman. Why did it have to be that when she needed words the most, they failed her and she couldn't help someone going through the same nightmare she herself had hundreds of years experience with?
If she were human, she might have let it all out in a long sigh. As it was, Ame slipped out of the room and back down to her own. Disheartened, she attempted to pray for guidance but felt no peace in doing so.
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:51 pm
A voice cuts the mists of thought... a familiar voice with a Scottish Highland accent-
"Ach, lassie, yeh've overslept again! Hyssop, lass... get up!"
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:07 pm
She looked up and blinked a few times to clear her eyes.
"Bowen? How? Bowen!"
Wanting nothing more than to truly touch him, she launches towards him with a bear hug.
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:19 pm
Bowen catches Ame as she jumps into his arms, the brother-and-sister-by-vampiric blood reunited... after a fashion. The world is naught but of mists and dreams, of spirits and prayers - the astral realm, the dreamworld.
"Greetin's lassie. It's been tae lang."
He hugs her tightly
"Lit'le sistah."
He smiles at her, his fangs gleaming through his facial hair of goatee/mustache.
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:35 pm
She holds him tight, as if she could truly smell the fresh air of Scotland in his long cloak. "I've missed you so much! It's been so very long."
His scruffy face and kind, bright eyes drew her face up from the soft fur lining. "Why though? This isn't real, this isn't earth. If this be Hell, I thank God for his Mercy because I can certainly imagine worse."
Looking round at the misty horizon, naught but cloud like substance above, below and all around them, her brow furrows, "Never in all my days have I seen such as this. At a mountain's peak, when the eyes are hooded by clouds, one can still feel rock below one's feet."
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:55 pm
Bowen shrugs
"Best as Ah kin guess is tha' et's sommat of ae dreamscape - an extension of ae soul or powae... or simplae th' mind that dre'ms."
He looks out upon the ghostly landscape that flits in and out of existence in the aether surrounding them
"Sometime' Ah see others. Sometimes Ah see you. And finally, aftaer all'a these years, lit'l sistah... we meet again."
He hugs her tightly again.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:16 pm
"All these years. You've been wandering this empty landscape?"
She looked round as if to sit someplace, but seeing nothing even beneath her feet, she finally just sits as if the place were a vast open floor.
"Someday we'll wander here together then."
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 11:19 pm
"Per'aps. Per'aps not. Mayhap ther'n be sommat beyond this... bu' if'n there is... Ah haven'ae seen et yet."
He puts an arm around her protectively - brother and sister, bound together by the same demon's blood.
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Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:59 pm
"Now though, why just now after a millennium?" she sighed. "It doesn't matter. I've adapted enough. My friend though...how does one help a Paladin who's become a vampire? I can't even imagine. I've tried to help him as you helped me, but I suppose I'm to old, from to different an era. Or culture, perhaps, I just don't know. There wasn't such a difference between us."
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Sir_Catherine Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:51 am
Bowen shrugs
"Between the fates and aether, I dinnae know, Hyssop. Ye do seem to be doing quite well for yourself, though, lass. And as for yer new friend... *he snorts lightly* ... it seems sae odd to see a paladin living an unlife such as oors... though ye two have more in common than Ah think ye realize..."
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