open | i heard a scream in the woods somewhere

[burying]

Who: Kieren Walker + You!
What: Kieren struggles with the consequences of his Free Runner Feat.
When: The Month of February
Where: Milton; Milton wilds.

Content Warnings: Will be listed in individual prompts.



permissions are here | contact: heolstor / _heolstor for questions/plotting

Comments

omg louis, be nice!!

[flambeaux]

Louis is of the opinion that he would move more naturally if he still had his vampiric strength. He conditioned himself to move as a human does for many years, still young enough to call upon the memories. He had less slip ups as the years wore on. Now he feels like a clumsy oaf moving in a body that is only nominally his.

May I propose another rule? When we hunt, we hunt human. Claudia and Lestat felt snubbed by Louis insisting on a diet of animals. When Lestat came back to them in 1937, the new house rules included a compromise on Louis's part. He wanted to lead by example to reestablish peace under their roof. Everyone had to compromise. They thought it would work.

Louis considers just telling Kieren that the business of his diet is between him and God. But that already is too strong a protest, practically an admission. He instead answers with a question, having no trouble turning the scrutiny of the magnifying glass on Kieren:

"What, is deer not enough for you? I endure."

I endure, the obstinate words of his vampire daughter who insisted on calling herself sister and could not bring herself to make peace with the one she used to call "Uncle Les."

"Losin' a little blood ain't no thing," he glosses over it, "but losin' a brain? I'm no doctor, but I'm fairly sure that's fatal."

oh so that's how it's gonna be huh

[burying]

Kieren opens his mouth and closes it a few times, flustered. Hey, that's harsh. He flounders for a good bit before he sucks in a breath, his voice a little terse.

"So like, the whole—" Nope, he can't say it out loud. He gestures vaguely to get his point across. "Thing. It's not like I was doing it all the time. I don't eat anything at all now, I'm medicated. It was only when I was— not me."

And now it's happening now because of... well, he doesn't know. He's not rabid, he knows that. But now he's hungry and he needs to eat brains again and he hates it! So yeah, he did eat people, but he's not doing that anymore!

"Vampires exist in fiction, you know." There's lots of vampire movies and books out there! Just as much as there's stuff about zombies like Kieren. Well, not ones like Kieren exactly — unless if he were rabid, which he's not right now. "And there's a whole town full of people, alive, and not, y'know, sucked drier than a capri-sun in summer."

So he's just asking!

[flambeaux]

Louis knows of the penny dreadfuls and ridiculous monsters in film. Not to his taste. Zombies, however, had not yet gripped the public consciousness as vampires did. A zombi was simply a thrall. Even vampires are, currently, delightfully passé, niche, with no place in the modern world of bright electric lights.

Louis knows well the dependence on a substance. He did it when he was human. To an extent, he does it when he's a vampire too. There's nothing quite as nourishing as people. So he is understandably concerned, though not exactly for Kieren, and he affects casualness:

"What happens when you run out of medicine? At least blood replenishes itself, given time. Even if I wanted to eat everyone in town, which I most assuredly do not, that would just leave me to starve. What is Capri-Sun, some kinda fruit?"

[burying]

"Well what's supposed to happen, hasn't." Kieren's careful in saying that first. It's all well and good having this guy help him and form this... whatever this is, alliance? But the last thing Kieren needs is to put a target on himself again, with anyone.

"I'm supposed to have every day. If I don't, then I— I turn back into... a more basic state. I wouldn't even be talking to you." There's a difference. No coherent thought, no thoughts at all. No recognition. No speech. No Kieren. "But I came here and... I don't even think the medicine exists in this place and— I'm somehow still me."

Not entirely unheard of, really. People have been changed by this place, somehow. Bigby's supposed to be able to become the literal big bad wolf, but he can't. Apparently there's people here with medical conditions that should have croaked ages ago and haven't. It's weird. Kieren doesn't like it, and he's still waiting for the other shoe to drop. That he might just turn rabid after all.

"Well, I guess that makes sense and uh—" Wow, is he serious? Kieren blinks. He doesn't know what a Capri-Sun is...? "Like a pouch of fruit juice. You poke it with a straw to drink it."

He mimes holding something in one hand and then stabbing it with something in his other hand. He instantly cringes. What is his life right now.

[flambeaux]

"Betrayed by your body again... Betrayed upwards, is the hope."

Louis watches Kieren's hands with interest. "Damn crazy..." he mutters to himself, but loud enough for Kieren to hear. "Like that thing I saw about the bag milk... Ain't natural..." Kieren sounds English, so Louis summarily adds Capri-Suns to the list of England's crimes.

Louis imagines the creatures in shoddy pulp fiction and garish movies, the mindless nameless things little better than rabid dogs meant to be put down. The beautiful vampire stalking parlors, what Lestat taught him to be, is entirely different. Unnatural, preternatural, a wolf in sheep's clothing, a vampire for Lestat's modern age and the more sensual of gothic fictions. Which begs the question, what does the vampire of Louis's modern age look like?

"A vampire who brings the town down on him with torches and pitchforks has slipped. No one ever writes about some guy settin' traps in his home so he can bite the rats later like your little Capri suns."

Louis has slipped in Milton. He bit people in hunger. He outed himself to others when he was in need. Part of it is his loneliness and part of it his appetite for self destruction.

"Here we go, deer tracks. And deer shit, of course... We keep goin' this way."