All has been quiet.
As quiet as cannot, in good (by this we mean the more ancient and morally bereft connotation of effective) and cautious undead existence, be expected.A secret, deep and darker than even the depth would belie, has been dragged free and tucked away elsewhere by unknown agents.
As of yet the unleashed kraken by the name of Comtois has yet to claim a tribute or exact vengeance. He has not been seen in violated-and-rebuilt Elysium, a new locale other than the one he left behind in the early nights of the siege, but the same place in form and function to unbeating Camarilla hearts. If Charlie is out there, he most certainly does not want it to be public knowledge, and seems to be succeeding at that.
As for the other Anarchs?
Well, those lower on the cities fluctuating food chain - which all of the Sect seem to be - have been keeping their heads low and their ears to the ground. Business as usual for such licks. Always between a rock and a hard place. Few would have it any other way, because despite the crush, there's freedom in it.
Ezra has been quiet. Andre has been following suit, as has almost always been his way, though he seems to be losing his tolerance for the aforementioned Brujah's de facto leadership. Timothy? Well, Timothy always seems to be thriving. John, who keeps the most open lines of communication out of all of them, lets on to Viol that the Ventrue Anarch is working on brokering a treaty with the Tremere, though Ezra may just end up using it as another bargaining chip with the Sabbat. The last is only speculation, but if rumors were a stock market (for vampires they might as well be) John's track record would make him a seer.
Edward? And, though she might not give as much care, Simon? Both ghouls now supposedly in league with her disparate network of revolutionaries have been even harder to keep tabs on. But John has a line on their location and a sinking suspicion they have been continuing their dealings with Ezra without much input from the other rabble rousers of Denver.
This leaves the Toreador known as Lux to do what she does, night to night through tonight, and no doubt look good doing it. There is a gallery opening downtown she has been invited to by multiple parties, including Johannah Farrish, a mover and shaker in the contemporary art movement in California. The fact she is skipping a night of Art Basel's weekend exhibitions in Miami for the Colorado tundra says it all in terms of the event's import. Where her recent finances are concerned, it could be an opportunity for investment and liquidation both, as Gloria Finn-Strauss is also set to be present, and as a dealer of rare clothing could help replenish the Toreador's resources. Gary, her faithful valet noir, has been pushing the investigation into the warehouse break-in with little luck, but has a meeting at the local precinct house to try and give things a push.
John, though, has already put himself forth as an option to squire her about for a night of high art and higher noses. He just loves any opportunity to cultivate new and independently wealthy customers, and having Viol on his arm is an added bonus.
---
[Viol in Winter]
'Darling,' she'd said when the Brujah offered to be her second.
'Darlingest John in the whole wide cold world.' Vibrant edge to a smile as unplanned as blood foam love. 'Yes.'
So that's all right. Arrangements are made to meet beforehand. Not at what passes for a haven these days. Not at the fucking warehouse. At Fireside Books, which is one of her hangs.
Lux could compell a poet to want a brighter word than bright. Even tonight: all in black. Black boots, thigh-high and suede. A soft shadowy sort-of black, those boots, over black (warm) leggings that are a blacker black. A warmer black. Black black black tunic-shirt-dress-thing, the collar of it a sharp line stopping beneath her clavicle. Black gloves. Black strass crystals in her earlobes. They're set in a thin gold filigree but they're so large, not chips but medallions. Left earring, dripping down from the [Perfect (Austrian)] black crystal and along the column of her throat: a wicked-faced/smug-smiling beatific Baroque cherub, gilt-winged, gold-winged, gold-wreathed, playing a gold-stringed violin (or Viol?) with a black bow. Black jade rose, dripping from the cherub's stiff wing-gold wrap.
The right earring is not near so ornate. The same beginning, that [Austrian (Perfect)] black crystal set in thin gold-hued metal scrollwork. But instead of a cherub, another perfect crystal, this one pale-fire. Same ending, a black jade rose, but this black jade rose is a rose on the cusp of opening. Even Lux's hair seems darker tonight, even as gloom-beloved as it usually is. Maybe she dyed it. Maybe it's given up remembering the daylight and given itself over to the night. Whatever. For warmth, she's wearing a cloak. Black. Lux in black.
Portrait of an Anarch, circa 2014.
Her legs are crossed at the ankles and she is leaning against a wall of the entrance alcove outside Fireside Books, waiting for John to appear so they can hie them to the gallery opening Johannah Farrish has decided to forfeit Miami for. There is a library cart against the alcove's other wall full of 25 cent books, warped by the weather. The alcove provides shelter from the wind and makes the snow-cold air bearable for a couple of minutes, which is about as long as Lux has been outside in the cold and the quiet and the getting colder. She's paging through one of the 25 cent books now, a mystery.
The thing Lux does night after night to this night is (try to) enjoy herself.
--
[The Many Fronts (All That Jazz)]
And all has been quiet.
As for Charles. Harpy, Elder. Lost. Even lost he's not entirely lost. Even disappeared without a trace he's left behind traces. There is no 'if.' He's still here in some of her expressions. He is in the new-found clarity she observes the world. He is even, just a little, in the rapt way she looks at the skynow (Portrait of an Anarch waiting for another Anarch before an art gallery opening in Winter [--the title needs work]); there are clouds, but streaks of night between -- and d'you know how many fucking stars there are? More than the mortal eye can see. Lux'd kill for a chance at the Hubble Telescope. Astronomers: now an astronomer's club might be fine dining.
And as for the disparate rebels, revolutionaries. Anarchists.
Timbo's thriving, Andre's Andre, Ezra's Ezra. Pleased Lux. That's fine, then. St. Germain knows this is Pleased Lux because she wears Pleasure like the most comfortable go-ahead-and-stroke it thing. [Don't. Fingers get burnt that way, kids.]
Tremere, Bargaining Chip, Sabbat. Displeased Lux. St. Germain knows this is Displeased Lux because that dangerous tilt of her sharp chin. Because of the look in her eyes. They're expressive as hell sometimes. They're expressive of Hell ready to give out a collection notice: there is To Pay, Mister. 'He better not.' Feelingly. 'Is there nothing that man won't use as a bargaining chip with the fucking Sabbat? He reminds me of a snail.'
Funny what enmity'll do. Lux wants to pay the Cockney One back for beating Johnny up by breaking his heart and wrecking his unlife. Lux doesn't want to give a handful of refugees back to the religious crazies whose blood-forged chains and cannibal-glow rites they've escaped. Lux remembers how terrified they were. Doesn't realize they've just gone from one chains-of-blood situation to another.
Besides. If someone is going to set the Tremere up to the Sabbat, it's going to be her. And it's not going to be to 'the Sabbat.' It's going to be her good sort-of-friend-or-whatever buddy-ol'-pal Flood. And it's going to be out of the generousity of her heart, not for some tissue-thin bargain.
As for the ghouls.
Lux is concerned about them. Simon and Edward. Less immediacy for Simon, but what of it? Lux still wants to know about him. Lux believes in Simon. The things she believes in him are things she doesn't like. Is there nothing that man won't, Lux thinks, her tongue curling against her teeth, at any expression of sinking feelings: Ezra and the Ghouls. The shittiest fucking band in the world.
But it's a group that makes her think.
--
Maybe she's thinking about them while she thumbs through that mystery book, waits for John to arrive. But maybe not. Balances out the too-cold-to-be-outside with an addict's desire to see the stars in the sky. The world's fucking beautiful, or she thinks it is.
--
Or she makes it so.
Or maybe she is the point of needles, her fangs that which pin it in place for display, this world that seems to revolve around her.
But are they not, instead, most like the moon? A reflection of light soaked up in life, now a silver reflection in the night. Waxing. Waning. But still moving the ocean of artists and appreciators and hangers on they move through like the tide.
Certainly waxing this night.
There is little room for small talk in such a big room. Such things are meant for trios of the forgotten. No, when things are said, they struggle to respond. Struggle to hold their own with decades compacted to diamonds, pressurized under the gravity of undead existence, against the blink of an eye many of their conversational counterparts seem subconsciously aware they are. They give off their heat like coal, a lesser form of carbon, and when they are spent they are embers.
But a Toreador? This Toreador? Unearthed from a grave she refuses with brilliance. And a Brujah? This Brujah? He is forged steal, intuitive alchemical, bloodline built by and builder and breaker of ages.
They could last forever. But instead of sitting in filigreed jewelry box or hard leather scabbard they are worn and drawn and here.
"There are numerous auction houses that are aligning their calendars in preparation for next year's fashion week. A walk through your closet and I'm sure we could bring a few items to the block. Those are pieces that absolutely must be shared with the world. And the world will pay," Gloria finishes.
Meanwhile see how John has ferreted away Finn-Strauss' assistant like a piece of silverware in his pocket, slipped her his card into her pocketbook, and circled his way back to Viol's side by the time the conversation seems drawing to a close.
And there is Johannah. If there is anything that resembles a warring constellation in this cosmic construct of art, fashion, society (all haute, haute, haute) it is her. Out there on the other side of the darkness, walls painted black and hanging with...
Or, right, this is a night for the arts, isn't it?
Splashes of color given form. Landscapes painted over photography, the latter blown up to pixelation and shapes returned through brushstroke and layer so thick they give it more texture than a flattened canvas print ever could. Desert landscapes. Light and sandblinded and sunsoaked and sprawling and, in a word, beautiful. In another? Stark. The reason for those black walls. Against any other color, a white or gray or anything but that blackness, they would not work.
A hat tip to the curator.
He stands beside Johannah. As does the artist. All engrossed in conversation on the otherside of this well-decorated microcosm.
--
They are over there. Johannah (rival constellation [crowned, sceptred]), the curator, the artist. Trinity responsible for the evening's event. These are over here. St. Germain working Finn-Strauss' assistant with his slick-sneakster card-about-business and Lux speaking to and listening as Finn-Strauss finishes on a villain's line. The world will pay.
"As long as it passes its credit check," Lux replies with easy good humor (let's not be too serious), having enjoyed pulling from the dealer's conversation a certain tendency to a certain (mercenary lyricism) revolutionary speech. "Poor old always paying for it world. Call me tomorrow evening, we'll make a date for a closet-crawl. Tell me your thoughts on "
There's a warehouse she'd like to empty out, after all. Old gifts she'd as soon transform. John's return is welcomed not with a look but a touch. She rests her hand on his shoulder, draws a brief but firm caress over and down the line of his shoulder blade. Lux is given to sensuousness and she enjoys the interaction of the supple lambskin leather of her gloves and the fabric of John's coat. The whisper of textures. And Lux is a social thing, of course, and she sheathes the conversation with all due niceties. Necessaries. Neat as lake-light dripping from a stiletto's point.
There. And now, over there --
Wait. First.
Lux holds herself quite still in front of one of the artist's pieces, her hands clasped behind her back and her chin lofted and she could be enspelled. She really could be. Fuck the licks who claim that Toreador are cowards or spineless or weak-willed. Toreador, who at any moment might be possessed and captivated by what it is they love but go out regardless. She is not rapt, but the promise of it wicks through her and she -- shivers? No, of course not. But she does look. And, looking, draw closer. Close enough to bat her lashes against stiff paint and to smell the linseed oil and toner, her pupils dark. The wicked-faced cherub at her ear brushes against her jaw, black crystals [black, black, black everywhere] dragging light down deep and keeping it- then she drifts further back again to look at another instance of kept light, of sun-scorched moon-faced otherworld evidence of a blinding world where-on seraphim might sharp their spears and all is daystroked and blanching.
And now, well. Now Lux has decided she wants a painter, if not necessarily a painting, and she studies the curator, Johannah, the artist, tries to pick out the former from the latter, and if she catches the artist's eye -- then one thing. If she doesn't, another. The first thing, a certain kind of look and a compressed smile, gaze-touching, something to drag Heaven down to Earth [Rebel, darlings. Rebel.], something enshadowed c'mere. Who says language needs more than a look? A hook. A heart. A fine pair of eyes and force behind them. A thief. If the second thing, then it's hearing sharpened up (pleasure in that [mostly]), sound of heat in the walls, murmur-net of conversation and echoes, echoing, echoing, the sussuration of breath caught-and-released and comfortable and chilling silence of John, and she listens to what her quarry's discussing before interrupting.
The interruption is inevitable. And then, a certain kind of look. A, "Johannah, love, why here? D'you know Johnny...?"
---
Have a Self Control roll I had Jamie do me for the first time I sat down to reply, and then have a Charisma + Empathy I had Jamie roll the second time I sat down to reply... on specifically Ze Artist (or whoever she thinks is Ze Artist), fall-out for Ms. Johannah and Ms/Mr. Curator. And whoever else is in the line of fire, I suppose! Or don't have them! They are here and were helpful. (grin)
-----
SELF CONTROL because y not enjoy some of that Toreador Flaw. Don't be entranced!
Nate Marszalek @ 2:32PM
Private Message to Molly Toombs
Jess asked me to roll 4d6 so I'm doing that for her I'm not nervous at all.
Roll: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 ) VALID
Charisma + Empathy! Or Expression, I suppose. Whichever is appropriate. For: Love me, yo, feel rapport, enjoy it.
jamie @ 2:10PM
Jess wants me to roll something for her. The things I do for love.
Roll: 6 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8) ( success x 5 ) VALID
--
Ask a question, no matter how sure you are of its answer's innocuous nature, and you may find something startling. A thing that unearths itself from under a rock like the intolerable vermin that it is. Or worse? A reply that falls from the sky with startling speed and weight.
And a comet is equal parts moving rock and falling star.
Viol asks a question of Johannah and she gives and answer that is something like words:
Why? "A new benefactor. A benefactor's benefactor," she says in Northeastern accented English, probably a footnote of moneyed education, and the revelation she would allow herself to be influenced and attribute such influence so freely is as much of a footnote to a polemic now going on. A contest that begins without either of its contestants realizing until now.
Johannah answers with something like words, but more of a look toward this intercession (incision) amongst the stars and lesser bodies.
Why? "A new benefactor. A benefactor's benefactor," she says in Northeastern accented English, probably a footnote of moneyed education, and the revelation she would allow herself to be influenced and attribute such influence so freely is as much of a footnote to a polemic now going on. A contest that begins without either of its contestants realizing until now.
Johannah answers with something like words, but more of a look toward this intercession (incision) amongst the stars and lesser bodies.
Charles' childe no doubt looks started for a neigh-imperceptible moment. The kind of moment only the discipline of the ancient augurs can perceive. An omen of facial muscles. And of course Viol notices it. For she is not the blood-fruit of Charles that is being discussed.
He is. He being Jasper. Jasper of New Orleans, was it last she heard? Or perhaps it was Canada. Quebecois. One of Charles' favored childer. One a (this time perceptible) measure older than Viol.
Jasper the rock. So perhaps just a rock. And if this is the rock, where is the hard place?
Whether the surprise she senses in him as he joins Johannah, the artist (Gert Orwell), and the curator (Eleanor Gale), and the other two undead is feigned (masquerade) or true is obscured to that same sense that reveals it. But it certainly seems genuine. And it turns into a smile.
"Johannah, please do introduce us," after a (lowercase for now) kiss given to the various kine, then looking to Viol. Is that how he's going to play it? As their gravities and pulls begin to war upon those surrounding. And then to John. A carefully timed afterthought.
--
There must have been a bright flash of recognition, at very least. An ember fanned to brightness, to heat - make her a fevered thing, kiss her forehead and close her lovely eyes with their shadows and their flirtation with darkness on gray-green silk, put her to bed where she might be made safe from tempests and desire.
And perhaps she is startled, too, to see her sire's childe here in Denver, approaching the anniversary of Charlie's disappearance, the Sabbat still very much a force to fear. Perhaps she is startled, too, to see [to divine] something in the immortal that looks like surprise before it becomes his smile.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps; must, must, must: These perhapses and musts and ifs are hidden (she tries to hide [to sheath her thoughts, keeping them at hand just in case a weapon's needed, of course, something to cut]) behind a certain war-time self-possession.
She does not tense. She does not stiffen. She doesn't hide behind John or move noticeably nearer her Brujah friend or the exit. She is insouciant, boneless, graceful, slouching, even in that first glance following a glance only to be surprised by him, and also immovable. The unspoken word forestalled by Jasper's request for introduction rests on the shape of her mouth like the after-image of somebody else's pressed against in malediction or benediction- until, anyway, she presses her lips together, the corner snicks up sharply. Unlike the artist, Jasper doesn't get the thousand-ship launching c'mere of a look. Jasper she regards with steady - something complicated, sublimated.
Perhaps she's longing to tuck him in her pocket like a piece of silverware, drag him off to a corner and pull the story of why he's here from him like thread from a spool. Or to turn him into a stone and send him skipping across the proverbial waters, away.
"Yes, please do," a questing tone; she has not yet decided whether she is going to play nicely, or cause some scene. Don't you remember me, after our weekend in Montreal? Musing: "Your benefactor has a beneficent face; he looks like an inheritor of gifts. And I do so enjoy being introduced."
And perhaps she is startled, too, to see her sire's childe here in Denver, approaching the anniversary of Charlie's disappearance, the Sabbat still very much a force to fear. Perhaps she is startled, too, to see [to divine] something in the immortal that looks like surprise before it becomes his smile.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps; must, must, must: These perhapses and musts and ifs are hidden (she tries to hide [to sheath her thoughts, keeping them at hand just in case a weapon's needed, of course, something to cut]) behind a certain war-time self-possession.
She does not tense. She does not stiffen. She doesn't hide behind John or move noticeably nearer her Brujah friend or the exit. She is insouciant, boneless, graceful, slouching, even in that first glance following a glance only to be surprised by him, and also immovable. The unspoken word forestalled by Jasper's request for introduction rests on the shape of her mouth like the after-image of somebody else's pressed against in malediction or benediction- until, anyway, she presses her lips together, the corner snicks up sharply. Unlike the artist, Jasper doesn't get the thousand-ship launching c'mere of a look. Jasper she regards with steady - something complicated, sublimated.
Perhaps she's longing to tuck him in her pocket like a piece of silverware, drag him off to a corner and pull the story of why he's here from him like thread from a spool. Or to turn him into a stone and send him skipping across the proverbial waters, away.
"Yes, please do," a questing tone; she has not yet decided whether she is going to play nicely, or cause some scene. Don't you remember me, after our weekend in Montreal? Musing: "Your benefactor has a beneficent face; he looks like an inheritor of gifts. And I do so enjoy being introduced."
Go on.
----
tithe
[Oh shit! Obligatory Manip + Subt!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
jamie
MANY SUCCESSES
jamie
WITNESSED
--
"John St. Germain," yes, Jo knows his name for reasons that made a husband an ex-husband, but she never held it against him because holding anything against John St. Germain would be like trying to hold back the Mississippi itself. No, one just rebuilds.
"Lux, my darling," and she may not be her darling, in fact Lux is clearly no one's darling anything and more daring chase and elusive yearning, c'mereindeed. Dear Jo needs something she can suffix the name with since despite even her age she is grasping for a surname she does not know. Maybe once she'd memorized the long lineage of Charles, but probably not.
"Lux, my darling," and she may not be her darling, in fact Lux is clearly no one's darling anything and more daring chase and elusive yearning, c'mereindeed. Dear Jo needs something she can suffix the name with since despite even her age she is grasping for a surname she does not know. Maybe once she'd memorized the long lineage of Charles, but probably not.
"Allow me to introduce," oh, entrenched feminism asserting itself in her shaping of this introduction, "Jasper Durant. If Gert is our illustrious artist, and Eleanor our architect and setter of stages, Jasper is the craftsman of this night."
--
[Jasper]
In a room full of... Well, a certain class? His build is no less rare. He fills out his suit without looking brutish about it, but the heft nevertheless adds to his presence. A bull among grazing cattle, because not every vampire need be compared to a wolf or a cat.
"I've heard so many wonderful things," past tense only she will pick up on, judging from the smiles that come all around between sips from wine glasses by those who drink that sort of thing. And then he's holding out a warm hand to Lux to take hers.
--
[Viollette]
First she pulls off a glove: let it be a director's perfect moment. There is a certain intimacy (or is it immediacy? Yes; perhaps immediacy better describes what is suggested) in the rather mundane gesture. Next she gives Jasper her hand.
This is when the puppets have their strings cut and the kine all rattle to the ground, isn't it? This is when his grip becomes stronger-than-hers, and holds her in place. The paintings flip over to reveal nightscapes. You Know Who come sauntering out and Isaac's at his side and it's another stake through the heart Lux, my darling, and new strings of blood, and it's curtains for St. Germain, and
-- No.
This is when the Discipline of Perception [of Auguries, of Omens; of True and Clear Vision] finally opens up, because she is open to the experience, because there is something assessing, always something assessing, about that complicated look, and she truly sees everybody cloaked in the radiant haloes of their souls which cannot lie, and
-- No.
This is when she gives Jasper her hand and a smile flashes in her eyes (like a sword flashes in battle when the battle's a poem [or a star's fall flashes on the horizon; too late to make a wish]), which meet Jasper's with a confiding directness before they shift to Johannah and Gert and Eleanor and Gert. If speech is the melody and body language is the harmony, the chords which carry the melody along, then this is all harmonic.
"Do you see why I enjoy," the word enjoy is enjoyed, easy good humor in the curve of her mouth, "being introduced? Everybody sounds so godlike in an introduction. A setter of stages, somebody to give us the world. An illustrious artist," and this must be when her eyes had shifted, to pay attention like an offering left to the Mysteries, to take Gert in and lend sincerity to the compliment as she deviates from the list poem of godlike attributes. "Who has inspired my envy. I know it's not fashionable to admit envy, but my god."
Beat. But truly, c'mere. Move on.
"And Johannah's darling," wistful, an equal-opportunity wrecker-of-hearts? Good-natured tease, to count that as great an honor as artist architect of a world and so on. Decorative ol' Lux. This must be when her gaze returns to Jasper's face; she acts as if has forgotten his hand, though she kept it. The idea was to keep it so that --
"And a craftsman of this night." 'Craftsman' like it's the name of an ex-lover one remains fond of; one remembers the taste of. The smile flashes again; couple it with a little slouching shrug. "What would you make first? The stars or the darkness? Art or the artist?"
-- when and if he seeks to reclaim it, she can act surprised that she still has it. Tuck her arm through Jasper's and say, Oh, I'm sorry. I must've wanted you. Come, tell me these wonderful things. And thus unapologetically whisk the night's architect, craftsman, godlike thing, insert your metaphor here, away.
--
Jasper
Jasper allows himself to be led in the same way an ox does. This is not to do a disservice to the noble strength of oxen. There is a domestication to his power and that power's concentrated, yet still profound, girth. Its force is applied with such undeniable purpose as he walks through the room that it draws eyes away from the artwork that adorning its walls. And there is, of course, the distinct impression that none of this domestication is sourced in his fellow Toreador's presence.
"As God," he repeats with a hearty and unapologetic and, most clearly, genuine amusement. "What would I create first," finally getting around to answer their question. Considering it. But only starting once they are going this way, her arm in his like a fine vine's delicate curl around the sturdy growth of a trunk. "I would create God and make holiness in an image like none here and see an omnipotence as bored or dumbfounded as I am, but then it would be in my image, wouldn't it?"
French, every word of it fluent, but that's to be expected. Few would catch the little telltale gutters and agricultural hills of a provincial tongue.
"Maybe that would be the thing, the point," another smile as he looks over to her. "We start with an image of a higher power and we craft it to fit our needs. Or it just grows that way."
"I am glad you could attend. It is so good to have someone to talk to," and then he is silence. It isn't a pregnant pause, though, but one indicative it is her turn to fill the space. One that shows he is eager to here her thoughts aired as she will in this little alcove of privacy their shared presence creates through superego and intimidation.
One does not interrupt such beings as these when they are walking and talking.
Viollette
Isn't she a thing? His unapologetic amusement touches her mouth just so: the suggestion of restraint, of something vibrant behind the restraint, of something impulsive and conspiratorial - and where a smile isn't quite visible there's dredging up, sharping up, of something fine and bright in Lux's lash-shadowed gaze, side-long but clear. Her head is angled just so, too: precisely, and if there is something imperious about the set of her chin, something rebellious, that's subliminated - isn't it? It's all suggestion.
Isn't she a thing?
Sure. All manner of things. All things have manners. When Lux still enjoyed the day, she had freckles across her nose. The ghost of these is still just visible. She crinkles her nose. He's smiling, looking back, and then he is silence.
"I do enjoy listening," Lux replies, and that suggestion of a smile? It remains a suggestion, though her gaze cuts away to rest on something pretty hanging on a wall. "And you, well; do you know, Jasper, I find your plans for Godhood reassuring? If you were God; if you were 'as God'; not the actuality of it, you know, how difficult to supplicate, but it is reassuring."
"So I am charmed, but will tell you directly: even so, I am not convinced that I am glad you attend. In fact I think I'm not."
Jasper
"You are worried," he says in summation of her own words. It seems to give him little explanation for why. He just seems to make that leap of intuition and then continue plodding through the task of understanding.
"Why would you be worried? Why would our Viollette be unhappy to see a relation in such uncertain times?" The question is not rhetorical, though he seems to use it as a temporary crutch to help himself along.
"You were never one for stability," he notes like he has some authority, if only relative to the utter ignorance of others, on the subject. "Lux could ride a bicycle down a stairway railing and not fall over, but ask her to put down her sword and she'd impale herself on it," he says in another voice that is his own with none of the tone or usual cadence. There's a formality in the Francophone grammar he uses now.
"That's what he would say. So many things to remember, but I remember that. Tell me you miss him, Viollette, if you do. Even if you didn't miss me," stopping to turn toward one of the photographs turned paintings, a strange mix of surreal form and color, though a few extra degrees means he's facing more toward her that the piece they've pauses in front of.
Viollette
You are worried.
Lux remains: a delicate profile facing the painting, the photograph, the vision of day breaking against and for paint. But her lashes fall; an inexorable sweep, a relief to close her eyes or nearly close her eyes for a moment. The suggestion of a smile becomes less a suggestion; it was suggested, and now it is tucked neatly away. The moment passes; it lasted less than a snow-flake come in contact with a candle-flame.
He quotes. The arm twined through his stays twined, but with her other hand she finds Jasper's fingers. And gives in, too. To the language, at least. Lux's French. Lux's French comes from a bastard province: no, not even a province. When she was alive, her Parisienne father, his ex-pat friends, American, American, American: but hadn't she sliced off most impurities, refined, refined, refined her accent as the night years went by after? Practice perfection.
"He never did do me justice. And now, you, too?
"Of course I do miss him." Lux; looking now from the painting, to meet the other Toreador's eyes. There is a shadow there: see? And it is passionate, an edge, and quiet: it is barely subliminated at all. "Of course.
"I find everything intolerable; I find not knowing intolerable.
"I find -- "
There. Cessation. Caesura. And: "So, Jasper, why? Why would I be happy to see you in these uncertain times? Shouldn't at least one of his chosen ones last forever? I must tell you, breaking hearts is falling out of style, so if you have come to break mine, you are not just cruel. Valentine. Jasper? Please."
Jasper
"Not everything created can endure," at the mention of the name. "But to do so it must stand the tests of time, not be cast under a sheet and shut away in a basement for safekeeping."
"I am staying. Call it stubbornness and call stubbornness the last habit I see fit to indulge in as an old man. I learned it from that old man and I won't tolerate not knowing either," he says with a finality. Viollette, his counterpart because they are part of one another (part of another) and counters like the sliding beads of an abacus, can she feel it?
The earth is shifting underneath. That's the bull digging his hooves into the ground. Setting himself before kicking off for a long charge toward his mark.
"Thank you for attending. Maybe I will have the chance to make you glad I did," a hand sliding over where his forearm crooks into his bicep, finding her hand there, and taking it to kiss if he may.
Viollette
[I am already glad you're here. Really.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 8, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Jasper
[ Perception + Subterfuge ]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Viollette
[Percept + Emp?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
Viollette
First there is restraint. A sharpness, see. A mental sharpness -- a leap-to-argue and to alarum: or just restraint. Lux does not enjoy Valentine being so dismissed. He was her favourite, wasn't he. Lux does not enjoy this conjuring up of shutting-away, of basements. There is a certain (sheathed, but imperfectly; perhaps he feels it in the pressure of her fingers, or the way her gaze lingers - haunts - his cheekbones and then his brow and then his eyes again) sharped-up resignation (or worry: isn't that what he saw?) when Jasper says that he will stay. When Jasper digs his hooves in, implaccable and stubborn, the king must die, Theseus, etc., what is an ox but a sacrifice, hm?
He may kiss her hand. But Lux, baroque malicious-smiled angel violining against her throat, hesitates; then hugs Jasper, unmannered indeed.
"I accept gifts, you know. Of fine art," and now it's contained laughter, a bright rill of it. A veil, a lovely veil, an imperfect veil: there are shapes behind. "Of fine artists. I am prepared to be made glad, really," and her voice shades to something serious, "at any opportunity. Converse. Do not be bored. Do not be dumbfounded."
Jasper
That is the tower's strength and weakness. At least that of its bricks, one of which Jasper surely makes up, and embodies now. They are wide and they are piled high and they can see far and see much, yes, but one knows what the tower can see. One knows if you watch the tower the tower is watching as well. He sees her marshaling and she can just as easily hear the sounding of trumpets. He notices her alarm and her restraint and sees she isn't setting down her sword, but sharpening it.
Jasper does not seem threatened, though, and he does not seem to connect these dots - stars they are - into constellations. She can see as much past all that usually comes with Jasper: loyalty and steadfastness (both synonym of stubbornness for things like vampires so concerned with their immortal self-preservation).
Why wouldn't an Anarch be hesitant to see a sectarian loyalist of her clan, though? Jasper leans and kisses and looks and listens when he's not seeing.
"Anything is preferable to hearing you're pawning off your possessions to the mob," and it would be patronizing if he didn't have a look of patronage in his eyes. "A picture of the desert to ward off the vultures," again his arm out, ready to lead her back to lighter conversation amongst the boring and confounding living.
Viollette
"How perfectly nice and perfectly mean at once," she says, still in French. (Perhaps Lux is planning to steal this brick from the tower -- somehow. Lux's perfect world is a world without the Camarilla and without the Sabbat. Lux has considered alternate forms of government but she is not a visionary; that is somebody else's job, isn't it.) "I feel like I kissed a flower and caught a bee on my lip; don't you know trade is, according to reputable sources, the highest artform? Possessing is so dangerous," and there is his arm, which she takes.
Lighter conversation, the living, and Johnny. Johnny who, now, of course, Lux searches out, as if to assure herself that he is still there.
"Come on, tell me your thoughts on the best mobs?"
Jasper
"The kind that can be put down," Jasper says with a chuckle and a seamless transition back to English. Jasper is the kind of vampire that chuckles. It's a loud noise like church organs playing a hymnal instead of a funeral march. And as the they crash together back into the constellations they'd left behind some sort of destructive (entropic) order is reestablished in the room.
Viollette
[roll credits.
sound production by -
directed by -
costumes by -
etc.]
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