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Post by Aurel on Dec 12, 2008 10:54:33 GMT -5
Aurel chuckled quietly. He could remember how Vincent had used to call him old geezer, when he himself recently had become a vampire. Aurel didn't feel old, most of the time, but with him, he gladly played on the great agedifference. He used to insult Vincent back then by insisting on calling him a child. The memory amused him, but he was too aware of how that was in a distant past. The present was different - there was no Vincent in it. Vincent had followed Aurel since he became a vampire and for almost ninety years after that. But since there had been too much to take for Vincent; his feelings for Aurel's daughter, attempting to kill Francis, etc. - he had ran away. Aurel had no clue of where he was, or when - if - he'd come back.
"Is there anything else you wonder?" He said, leaving his memories and thoughts for a short minute.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 12, 2008 14:45:36 GMT -5
Nicolas tilted his head, plunging into another question without really pausing to consider how wise it was, how welcome, or how much he really did wonder at it. "Why you're being so generous. Certainly if I remind you so much of yourself you must not appreciate the comparison."
The question was just as impudent and just as gently spoken as the last. And he was seemingly oblivious to the fact that not all vampires suffered self-loathing to the same degree Nicolas did. Nonetheless, the way Aurel went from shouting at him and threatening him and mocking him to being charitable and hospitable seemed to suggest it. And as much as Nicolas could be touched, which was not very much - for first and foremost Nicolas was completely self-absorbed, no matter how deeply moved he could be by another person outside of that - he was touched by the kindness that had been shown him. More than that, however, he was simply rather indifferently, insistently curious about it.
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Post by Aurel on Dec 13, 2008 11:29:54 GMT -5
No, it certainly wasn't pleasant for Aurel to see himself in Nicolas. He knew how cruel and obnoxious he had been in his younger years, and saw Nicolas was capable of being just as cruel as himself.
No one had showed Aurel that there weren't only darkness in the world, he was totally unaware of anything else but his own misery and desires, and therefore couldn't care less about others. He killed innocent people, murdered, and did whatever suited him for the moment. He was such a spoiled lord, used to having everything going his way. And when it didn't - things got ugly. He didn't know the background of Nicolas, but imagined he wouldn't hesitate to do reckless things to get his way as well.
"I guess I want to help you somehow. No one never cared for me back then, and I couldn't care less for anyone at all, so I guess that made my cruelty even worse. I thought if I showed you that everybody aren't that bad, you might not become the monster I once was." Aurel explained with a shrug. He knew it might sound like he's trying to be a hero, or likewise, but he just felt like helping out. That was all.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 14, 2008 17:17:39 GMT -5
Nicolas smiled, this answer somewhat pleasant if amusing as well. He had detested those who had looked out for him in the past, of course, most of them - Lestat and Gabrielle, for the little time she had done it, and most of the Theatre's coven, although he had been more wary than loathing of Eleni, and Armand had frustrated him more than anything - but it did not mean he detested being looked out for. It was a greater feeling of security than he was even willing to admit to, to lean back to fall into chaos and instead find oneself in someone's arms.
He spread his arms unassumingly in a little shrug. "I am the monster you are, the one we all are. But I think there is very little chance of my being the monster you say that you were. I have little inclination towards cruelty. I can't see myself putting in the effort." He smiled a little. It was true, nonetheless, in a strange way.
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Post by Aurel on Dec 18, 2008 14:07:22 GMT -5
Aurel eyed Nicolas, slightly frustrated. It didn't seem as if his words got through to him, or as if he didn't care. However, kids these days... Aurel walked impatiantly around the library, as if waiting for something to happen. He was unaware of his frowned face, and kept on strolling around. The thought had struck him a few times, but he wasn't sure if there was a use to ask anything. Though he did anyway:
"Do you know who Vincent Chevalier is?" he blurted out suddenly. "Does that name sound familiar to you?"
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 18, 2008 14:50:50 GMT -5
It seemed Aurel had a question to ask of Nicolas, now, too. It wasn't unwelcome, although something of a surprise when the words came out. He hadn't expected anything of the sort.
"No," said Nicolas, after thinking. He frowned and shook his head. Though the name did click in his memory, and he realized, with something of a start, that Aurel had specifically mentioned a Vincent. "Have you lost him?" His voice was soft, and how he meant the word 'lost' to be interpreted, it wasn't exactly sure.
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Post by Aurel on Dec 18, 2008 15:08:31 GMT -5
"Kind of" he said slowly "He lost himself and left here."
After Vincent had tried to kill Francis, and turned his back to everyone, Aurel was furious with him. He didn't want to see his face ever again, he thought. And Vincent didn't say a word before leaving. Aurel hadn't heard from him at all, he wasn't even sure he was still alive.
But he had to be! He couldn't bare the thought of Vincent dead. He had been with him for ninety years - he had got attached to the little brat. Sure he had to be out there somewhere, maybe he had found some other vampires to stay with.
"He is - was - one of my closest men", Aurel explained. "Thanks to too much trouble, he left here. Maybe that was for the best, but I haven't heard from him since then."
Aurel didn't know how many vampires Nicolas knew. He didn't know much of Nicolas at all, but maybe he might be able to help him out anyway.
"If you hear anything about him, please do tell me."
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 18, 2008 15:22:22 GMT -5
Nicolas held his knees as he listened to Aurel explain who Vincent was, looking like he would have been more in-place on a fencepost, legs tucked in like a scarecrow as he watched with his head cocked in his ragged attire, no matter how lovely the gentlemen's clothes had once been. He got the impression that this was a wound that had pierced more deeply than Aurel was allowing him to see, something he felt intuitively rather than figuring through logic. He nodded.
"I'll try to hear something," he said, the most he could promise. He'd only just regained consciousness or something some short time ago and had no idea how he'd come to be here in the first place. And perhaps, whenever he next saw Armand, he could ask him. Although he didn't suppose it would be a good topic to introduce should Armand happen to catch him breaking into his tower, as he had decided to do for this night. He wanted to see it, in the same way that a man might want to visit the hospital room in which he'd been birthed, just to stand there as a grown man and recognize the powerful difference. Just as he might celebrate his birthday. "If I do...should I say something to him?"
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Post by Aurel on Dec 19, 2008 8:49:26 GMT -5
Aurel thought for a minute, then shook his head. "It doesn't matter, you do as you wish. As long as I know he's alive, that's enough."
The truth was that Aurel didn't know how he would react if he met Vincent once again. Probably, he would go furious again and beat him up, just to punish him for making him worry so much. Aurel hadn't realized it before, but he was hurt when Vincent betrayed him. He never thought Vincent would do such a thing. Aurel had trusted him more than anyone, and he was betrayed. Yes, it had hurt him enormously.
Aurel looked up, facing Nicolas. He suddenly looked very tired, his handsome face for a short moment displaying a large amount of sadness. But he smiled faintly, as he said "Thank you."
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 27, 2008 19:58:07 GMT -5
Nicolas snorted, uncomfortable, though not in a way that he recognized as discomfort, with the sudden intimacy growing on the two of them at a rapid pace. Nicolas did not like intimacy. He tolerated it at best, and that only with a select few - Lestat, whom he'd loved, who he hated, and Armand, if that could be called intimacy. Come to think of it, perhaps he had been too hostile with Armand this last time. Perhaps Armand had thwarted his suicide, but before that...long before that...hadn't he almost liked him?
Yes, he would certainly be going to the tower, shortly...
"Don't," said Nicolas, folding his arms as though to ward away the cold, although letting someone be close to him was hardly coldness. "I've been known to be little more than a nuisance. Will hardly seem anything else to you, I'm sure."
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Post by Aurel on Dec 30, 2008 8:20:55 GMT -5
Aurel frowned. He glared at Nicolas, once more thinking how annoying he could be. He didn't answer Nicolas, he was too busy not scolding him for being so ungrateful. What's wrong with accepting a 'thank you'?
He walked over to him, his eyes staring into his. He smirked slightly, before he spoke.
"Well then, monsieur. What are your plans for the rest of the evening?"
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 30, 2008 18:00:55 GMT -5
Nicolas looked up at Aurel, half-surprised, though his eyelids didn't quite give it away, and he seemed very mild and harmless indeed - if somewhat insolent, and certainly the sort of cad you didn't want absent-mindedly courting your daughter in cozy Parisian streets in the middle of the night - as he stretched his arms into the air above him as though simultaneously stretching as mortals did in the early morning and obscenely flaunting the fact that he'd not seen early morning in a hundred years.
"I am going to break into Armand's tower," he said, unthinkingly, for earlier he had been very careful about guarding Armand's name from Aurel. "And I am going to fill my eyes with it and perhaps then it won't burn in my eyelids anymore when I close them. Do you know, I believe I was somewhat antagonistic to him last night, if you can believe it of me."
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Post by Aurel on Jan 1, 2009 10:33:22 GMT -5
"I certainly can" Aurel answered "I hardly think you are able to surprise me, since you seem capable of anything." His last words were spitten out, and it was clearly not a compliment. Aurel got the feeling he should get Nicolas out of his castle, before he lost his temper for real. Something had started to bother him, but he had no clue of what it was. Perhaps because Nicolas seemed to be way more complicated then Aurel first had thought, and to think there was someone he couldn't figure out bothered and annoyed him.
"Armand..." he then said, trying out the name, tasting it almost. "I have never met him, but I may have heard of the name before." With his arms crossed, he thought for a second, considering of where he might have heard the name before. Noticing Nicolas very human gestures, like stretching, he wondered if he was aware of them. The thought struck him that Armand should be an older vampire as well, otherwise Aurel wouldn't heard of his name.
"I am curious of this Armand", he said out loud - mostly to himself. He then continued, now speaking to Nicolas: "Go to his tower whenever you wish. Don't let me stop you."
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 3, 2009 14:41:19 GMT -5
Nicolas did not have the sense - did he ever? - to know he was insulted; instead he misunderstood the purpose of the sentence as a response to what he'd said, and, looking at it out of context, it was absolutely incomprehensible to him: I hardly think you are able to surprise me; you are capable of anything. His eyes fell momentarily out of focus as he attempted to sort this out. Only the sound of Armand's name broke him out of his reverie, as his heartbeat jolted unevenly and he tried vainly to think of what Aurel could have meant by mentioning Armand.
It took a moment to realize he had instigated mention by saying Armand's name in the first place. He felt violated, suddenly, his privacy compromised, and terribly uncomfortable. Why should Aurel speak to him of Armand? He felt the need for distance take hold as it often did, paranoid that he might give something of himself away through Aurel's knowledge of Armand.
"You couldn't if you wanted to," said Nicolas. He was standing in a moment, and then, as vampires could do, in the next second, he was at the door, glancing back at him, and then he had left into the hallway. Aurel probably could, but he didn't imagine him wanting such a thing; and he was unnerved and felt the need to get away from him. Maybe he wouldn't come back, he mused, as he climbed out a window of the castle, into the moonlight - maybe he'd just leave Lord Aurel to his own castle and his eerie little bed.
And then again...
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 13, 2009 11:24:10 GMT -5
*New Night*
Nicolas hadn't gone on to Aurel's that night, though, which was not uncommon as he was very rarely in, or seemed to be. There had been a few nights when he never showed up at all, staying in a mausoleum or a crypt as though the smell of death didn't affect him like it did other vampires. He sometimes got to his coffin in Aurel's only a little while before the sun would be up, and the moment it had set often broke out and left. The few times they had run into each other, he might have been polite, but was rarely amiable or affectionate. And occasionally he surprised Aurel in his library, asked politely if he could read something, spoke in an informal but learned way about one of the books and seemed genuinely interested - at the very least, not bored - by the other man's opinions. He was not overly respectful, objectively speaking, but was enormously so by Nicki-standards.
And Aurel did not seem overly curious about him and thereby did not discomfort Nicolas to any great degree. Even when Nicolas was burning with agitation over Armand's lack of appearance, he did not confide in anyone, and besides, agitated, Nicki was likely to break things and this would probably lead Aurel to hurt him.
In general, though, it was not entirely out of the ordinary, but still a bit momentous by Nicolas' standards, when Nicolas came into the library and leaned against one of the bookshelves as though with the intention to speak soon, with a quiet and unassuming manner.
Meeting Aurel's eyes, he said in a soft tone of voice, "I've found Armand."
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