|
Post by Dorian Gray on Feb 2, 2009 19:14:04 GMT -5
"You don't look at the decorations, Daniel. You look at the people."
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 2, 2009 19:16:09 GMT -5
"Well, yeah. But it's hard to miss, really."
He eyed the people that were coming and going.
"I don't see anyone interesting yet."
|
|
|
Post by Dorian Gray on Feb 2, 2009 19:27:54 GMT -5
"Someone always shows up, you know. Patience."
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 2, 2009 19:39:57 GMT -5
"I have only so much of that...but I'll give it a chance."
|
|
|
Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 3, 2009 8:57:49 GMT -5
It did not occur to Nicolas that Armand might be at all uneasy with the thought of him let loose in the bright, wide foyer of the Palais Garnier, rather than safely lurking along back streets in poorer districts, but even if it had, he would doubtless not have stopped himself from going there. He had been having poor luck in those streets, anyway, and the rich had rings to spare.
Nicolas shut the door behind him silently, not realizing, as he slipped the baroness' rings into his pocket - men's fingers were not so slender as Armand's, he'd noticed - , that there was a little smear of blood on his cheek from his careless wiping of his mouth on the back of his black sleeve. He had, with a rare self-monitoring that he was almost proud of, realized that the bloodstained state of his clothes was not going to gain him entrance into any place where there was someone wearing the sort of jewelry he sought, and changed attire, although even so, it was only his preternatural abilities that had gotten him into the Opera House, as any man of fashion would have cringed to see him, his clothing oddly old-fashioned, although crude and low-class (he'd taken them from a victim of the lower classes), and not at all in an elegant, costuming way.
The baroness, who was dazed and rather pale, stumbled away from him, back to her husband, where she collapsed into a faint rather shortly - she'd live, for Nicolas had only supped to warm up a bit and had fed directly before coming, though she caused an enormous amount of commotion in the Foyer that was rather hard to miss, although Nicolas, naturally, was oblivious. As everyone on the grand, opulent staircase seemed to be rushing down it to see whether or not it was true that an aristocrat had just died quite suddenly - as her cousin, some duke's wife or other, was shrilly shrieking in urbane hysteria - Nicolas found it easy to go sit on the steps, pull out the rings he'd collected, and fondly begin to sort through them, not imagining he might be noticed at such a time or in such a public place.
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 3, 2009 10:27:29 GMT -5
The commotion everyone was making was very amusing. Daniel rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
"Oh, for chrissake. You'd think that by now anybody living in this city would be used to someone fainting from blood loss."
He'd noticed the vampire...and really, it was hard not to notice when one of his own kind was in the area. Daniel nudged Dorian.
"There's the cause of the faint."
|
|
|
Post by Dorian Gray on Feb 3, 2009 18:16:10 GMT -5
"Oh really?" he asked with interest, following Daniel's gaze. "Do you know him? Shall we go meet him?"
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 3, 2009 18:19:12 GMT -5
"Nobody I recognize. Let's go bother him, hmm?"
|
|
|
Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 4, 2009 14:57:07 GMT -5
...Whereas Nicolas sat, oblivious, as usual, a few steps up the staircase, ignoring the forest of legs around him, and looked over the dainty little rings in his hand like a boy who has just won half his classmates' marbles and is admiring the grown collection.
Some of them were vaguely gaudy - thank you, Paris aristocracy - but most, as he saw it, were simple and pleasant and exquisitely tooled. Tiny jeweled flowers, or little silver knots, or large ornate garnets set in silver, or strange dark opals of several different sizes, or Byzantine diamonds... He was so pleased with himself.
|
|
|
Post by Dorian Gray on Feb 5, 2009 16:32:45 GMT -5
"Good evening," Dorian said, sauntering with Daniel over to the dark haired vampire. "Those are some very pretty rings you've got there. Look, Daniel- I wonder where he got those."
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 5, 2009 16:43:40 GMT -5
Daniel surreptitiously glanced in the direction of the fainted noblewoman before glancing back at the vampire.
"A wonder, indeed."
|
|
|
Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 6, 2009 12:51:22 GMT -5
Nicolas glanced up in something like surprise, although he was generally somewhat collected - he had been so absorbed in what he was doing that he had not noticed the man who approached him until he'd been addressed.
This tendency to speak to Nicolas as though to a young child was beginning to be grating. He did not relate this to his own tendency to touch Armand as though he were a child; they were separate issues in his mind. Mouth getting to the utmost corner of sullen, Nicolas closed his hand over the rings protectively and put them into the pocket of his coat again.
His curiosity, however, was piqued. Seeking to understand the mechanics of this relationship, he eyes moved from the self-possessed young mortal to his immortal... companion. His keeper?
"Is he yours?" he asked the vampire, as though the other could not hear them, or were not there, or were a servant not likely to speak for himself.
|
|
|
Post by Daniel on Feb 6, 2009 14:18:56 GMT -5
The question struck Daniel as so amusing that there was only one reaction he had to it.
He burst out laughing.
|
|
|
Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Feb 6, 2009 14:24:49 GMT -5
Nicolas had been known to do that too often to be strictly offended, even unconsciously, but he was taken aback enough by it to lean back, brow furrowing slightly.
Well, that was a no. He couldn't understand what good the mortal was if he wasn't. A pretty, if haughty, specimen, he was doubtless nice to look at, but not one Nicolas would think one would choose for company. Still startled and on guard, his eyes glanced from the laughing vampire back to the young man who had initially spoken to him.
|
|
|
Post by Dorian Gray on Feb 11, 2009 16:56:20 GMT -5
Dorian shot Daniel a venomous glare, then turned and gave Nicolas the same.
"No, I am not his. He's more mine than anything."
|
|