singillatim | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Lestat de Lioncourt and open
What: Exploring town, exploring caves
When: December
Where: Milton, Misty Falls Cave

Content Warnings: Vampirism and associated blood thirst, animal hunting and consumption, claustrophobia, caving

misty falls cave

Unlike many of the explorers seeking the cave, Lestat did not receive directions from the old man of the forest. His guide to the falls came in the form of others’ boot prints trekking to and from the falls, a sight which couldn’t fail to incite his curiosity.

The trail brings him to the falls some hours after sunset. He had his trap-line to attend to first, where he took his small dinner from a gamey rabbit that now hangs dressed and butchered in his growing larder. Hunger blunted, if not sated, he can admire the tumult of icy water as it deserves to be admired.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” He calls over his shoulder as soon as he picks up the sound of newly approaching footsteps, perhaps sooner than whoever comes might expect. “A chandelier hung by winter itself.”

He turns gracefully even in his heavy winter layers, smiling at the newcomer as if they are already in accord. Warm acquaintances at the least, if not yet friends, on the cusp of embarking into a thrilling secret together.

“What do you think is inside?”

vampire about town

The evening Lestat walks into the grubby little town is unremarkable except for the fact of his arrival, a fact which perversely delights him. There have been no letters sent ahead, no lodgings arranged, no quantities of money moved by the firms of quiet professionals who attend to such things on his behalf. There’s only Lestat in secondhand winter layers, gliding between the huddled houses to the center of the community.

He’s always a little excited by novelty. It’s a quality one must cultivate to survive the interminable span of immortality, and it’s one of many such qualities he possesses in surplus of necessity.

So his anonymity has its charm, as fleeting as it will be. His mark will be made soon enough, beginning with crossing the threshold of the town’s gathering place.

Once inside, he takes in his surroundings with evident approval before he crosses to a table near the fireplace. He undoes the bundled canvas strapped to his back and lays it down, unfolding it to reveal the choicest cuts of venison he’d been able to harvest from last night’s hunt. Its blood is only a pleasant memory, but sufficient to keep him clear-headed and convivial.

He turns to the nearest party who happens to catch his attention with a modest smile, plucking his gloves from his hands a finger at a time.

“Good evening,” he says, warmly, “I thought this might make a decent supper. You wouldn’t happen to be a cook?”

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It isn't a task that he'd particularly wanted to take on alone, much preferring the stability and security of a group effort. (Wiser, too, to have multiple sets of arms for carrying items, and multiple sets of eyes to keep watch out. To keep one another safe. He isn't meant to function on his own.)

However, Edward has found that many of his tasks these days are done in isolation. It's an odd ache, a feeling of wrongness, and of a particular sort of loss. Several of the men from his specific time and place have ambled up to Milton by now, and yet they remain scattered pieces rather than anything that could constitute as a unit. He doesn't have a place with them. He doesn't know his place anymore.

He ducks his head against the biting chill the closer he gets to the waterfall. There are others he could have asked to come with him, but most are still recovering from the storm that ravaged the town. He keeps walking, following the directions given by Methuselah.

The great mass of half-frozen ice begins to reveal itself to him, but before he can take in the sight, a voice calls to him, and Edward's startled, head lifting up as his eyes find the source. A man, one whom he has yet to make acquaintance with, smiling his way. Admittedly, a fellow human (that is the assumption here...) is a welcomed sight, and the other man is exhaling a quiet sound of relief, boots trudging through the snow as he makes his way over, keeping a gloved hand against the strap of his shotgun to secure it in place.

"Ah — good evening." Though he's not as outwardly expressive as this stranger, there's a friendliness of his own, even if muted, polite. He can't hide that he's a bit winded, though — and anxious, wary of what's to come, eyes shifting sideways to the waterfall for a brief moment, the way one would look at an animal they don't quite want to make eye contact with, before returning to his new companion.

"Hopefully not literal treasures." There's something that could be a smile, but it's more a wince; Methuselah described the prepper as hoarding 'things of value', and to him, that may very well have meant precious stones, items of wealth.... none of which would have any benefit to those trapped in the town now. Where others might be eager to head on in, Edward lingers — to recollect himself, catch his breath, but also due to that wariness; he clearly isn't seeing this as some grand adventure... He looks the other man over, tipping his head in a nod.

"Did you have a safe journey up here?"

Rorschach had noticed the stranger enter the Community Hall. It wasn't the usual time when new arrivals showed up, so he could only assume this man had been keeping to himself. Maybe he was living on the outskirts of the woods? Or in the woods like Methuselah? (Though he hardly looked like the outdoorsman type.) With how small the town was, Rorschach knew he would have assuredly seen him before now if he'd been among the main population.

"No," he said. This was the man who ate cold beans straight out of a can after all. "But it's not hard to." One couldn't afford to be picky about how that food was prepared in a place where survival was always on the line.

Lestat is an excellent judge of human character even without his mental gifts. Honestly, he barely has to make use of them at all, so acquainted is he with the varieties and types of humankind. He takes Edward in as he approaches with a gaze devoid of calculation, open and welcoming, and takes his measure.

A mannered man, uneasy in his skin, but seeking to present an appearance of competence. Anxiety is scrawled across the cant of his smile and the grip he keeps on his weapon, which Lestat thinks he does not want to use. He's come here for a purpose, presumably the same as the other travellers Lestat did not make himself acquainted with, and that purpose is a burden to him. But it is a burden he shoulders because he thinks it a duty, with how he inquires after the well-being of a stranger as if that stranger already falls under the aegis of his care.

Lestat's smile takes on a touch of worn bravery. He pretends to allow tension he does not feel to slip from his shoulders.

"The wolves seem to be elsewhere tonight," he says, with a slight nod, and begins to walk towards Edward as if it does not occur to him to take precautions in the presence of an armed stranger. Immediate trust, given without hesitation, as Edward appears so easily trustworthy.

"Lestat de Lioncourt, at your service," he offers, extending his hand to the other man, "So you do know something of this cave. I was curious, when I saw the tracks...so few other people delve this far into the woods."

That's quite a look. Lestat admires the shifting patterns over the strangers' features with fascination that borders on indecent, his hands stilling in their work. But he decides not to begin with commenting on it, largely out of a fit of whimsy. After all, he's certain almost everyone must say something about such a sight, and he hates to be predictable.

"I'm well out of practice, myself," Lestat says, with a diffident little wave of his hand, "It was bread, cheese, and a little wine for me, back in my wilder days - ah, well. Perhaps more than a little wine."

He brightens his smile, showing off a glimpse of even white teeth.

There was something about the way Lestat looked at him which made Rorschach feel profoundly uncomfortable. He was used to people looking at him because of his face. That was the natural way of things when it was his most striking feature. But there was something about that fascination that made Rorschach think of retreat briefly before he quelled the thought. He wasn't about to turn tail just yet.

"Bread, cheese, and wine? Were you a cultured mouse?" Rorschach said. It was hard to tell with the flat tone of his voice but that was meant to something approaching a joke. In the back of his mind, something noted the rather charming way the man had of looking when he was smiling.

Lestat laughs, amusement easy and natural.

"Yes," he says, delighted, "Like the country mouse and city mouse - I was a mouse in the country, and found the city more to my tastes."

That isn't quite what the moral of the story is, but Lestat finds the original moral to be rot. Any mouse from the country would do well to make their way to the ripe abundance of the city, where instead of picking over farmers' winter seeds and hazarding their cats, they can nibble at the trash of a hundred drunks a night, so long as they stay clear of poison.

"Isn't that another story? A lion who was a mouse? Or a mouse who thought he was a lion?" He lifts a hand and wavers it side to side. "Something to do with a thorn in the paw."

Levi looks down at the meat. "Um..n-no I can't cook. U-unless you just want to roast that over a fire...but, um, it'd probably be better if someone else does it. I can help you store it?"

There was no power to the refrigerators anymore, but due to the cold they were still basically ice boxes.

"Levi!" Lestat doesn't have to feign his pleasure at recognizing the solemn young soldier, his remarkably blue eyes brightening as they fasten on Levi's features. "It's been too long - you must catch me up."

Apparently the subject of food can be set aside for a moment to address pleasantries first.

He responds with a small smile, glad the other man recognized him. "Um, well, not that much happens here really. I assume you've noticed the weird tracks and the dead things?"

Lestat nods, a touch of solemnity colouring his smile.

"One of the reasons I made my way to town," he lies, casually and readily, "The woods are becoming a touch dangerous for my taste."

"There's something new in them. Something dangerous and probably poisonous. Or it just likes killing." Maybe both.

"Its generally safer staying in town...but its not like I can stop anybody from living out there."

"Definitely look more like a city mouse," Rorschach observed. The way this man carried himself and spoke didn't speak of someone rustic at all.

He shook his head at Lestat's horrible butchering of Aesop. "Mixing up two fables. First one mouse is spared by lion from being eaten after saying it will do good deed for him in the future. Lion thinks nothing will come of it. It's the strongest animal in the jungle. The king of beasts needs no help. Then gets trapped in a hunter's net. Can't get out. Mouse hears his cries for help and comes, chews through the net to free him. In other one, slave named Androcles escapes into the forest, finds a lion that won't attack him. Lion has thorn in paw and needs help. Man removes thorn, heals the beast's injury. Lion repays his kindness by bringing him food. Eventually, man is recaptured, sentenced to die in the arena by the emperor. They bring out a lion to kill him. Lion refuses, recognizes the man who was kind to it. When emperor hears why, he frees both Androcles and the lion. Moral of both stories: spare those weaker than you even if kindness is hard and someday they can return the favor owed."

Congratulations to Lestat. That was probably the most Rorschach had spoken to anyone on any subject at length. But then he'd always been a voracious reader and just about everything he read got stuck in his mind. Something, he supposed, that had to do with how little he interacted with other people in reality, allowing his mind to fill in the gaps with fiction.

Dangerous, poisonous, and likes killing. Lestat can't help but feel a pang of affinity for the mysterious marauder.

"Does it worry you that I do?" He asks, pleased by the idea. He knows the young man has no particular reason to single him out as an object of concern, but even being one in the abstract is a sop to his ego.

"I guess? I kinda worry about everyone who does, but its their business." He cares in that he's decided to protect the town, but doesn't feel that much for most individuals, especially those he hasn't interacted with much.

Lestat listens raptly, his fascination even sharper for the recounting of these tales than it was for his first impression of the man's shifting caul of face. This stranger has a voice better suited for rough growls and barked demands than fables, and there's something utterly compelling about the contrast.

The cadence is the best of it. The stories broken up into hard sentences, bare of adornment, refined to the essential parts. Not to his usual tastes at all, but somehow arresting all the same.

"It seems I've been handily educated," he says, hands stilled, looking at Rorschach for all the world like no more interesting person exists anywhere for miles, "With such a striking moral, no less. A jaded view of kindness, wouldn't you say, Mr...?"

He kept an eye on his audience the entire time he spoke, getting the stories out in his own strange, stilted way of speaking. He'd long since lost the talent of easy communication with other people, something that had atrophied for so long in the ten years since the Blair Roche case as to become almost gone entirely by the time he'd ended up in Milton. By contrast, his writing was a lot more verbose and bordered on purple prose most of the time, which more accurately reflected the string of thoughts constantly running through his head.

There was a definite charm to this fellow, from the way he looked to the way he spoke. Rorschach was both pleased (though he would have died rather than admit it) by it being directed towards him and also suspicious. Very, very suspicious. He wondered if it was something conscious he was doing to get along with the other Interlopers or something subconscious that had been done for so long it was simply ingrained into his personality now.

"Rorschach," the vigilante replied. He tilted his head a little towards Lestat in something approaching a polite gesture, waiting for the other man to introduce himself.

Tim has renounced humanity. He's become beaver.

That's the brand of elevator music serenading him between his ears, anyway. He's slumped over one of the few surviving tables in the Community Hall. He's chewing on a stick.

He's blinking intelligently at the bag of goodies plopped down in front of him, and he wonders if the man even knew he was awake. Because Tim didn't. Tim didn't know he was awake. He has maybe assumed, but the hope had lingered that he would manage to fall asleep. He hadn't. He's awake. He's chewing on a stick, staring at a... meat bag.

Ew?

Tim, with an almighty show of brute strength (not), sits up, removes the stick from his mouth, and tries to pretend like he wasn't just more asleep than awake.

"--uh?"

He never considered veganism until he got stuck doing the Bunny Thing, and the sight of something raw wants to turn his stomach. Treacherous as always, his stomach only growls. Welp. Tim runs a hand through his hair. Says, "Uhm. I'm the one who normally burns the water. I can take you to the kitchen? There's always someone there who knows what they're doing."

And because he can't help himself, "Uh. What is it?"

"Let me put this worry aside," Lestat says, rapping his knuckles lightly against the table for the sake of the pleasing sound of percussion. "I'm set on a change of address for myself. In fact, if you know of any available properties, I'd be grateful to you for a reference."

"I don't really pay much attention to what houses people live in, but they usually make it obvious if its been claimed. This isn't the biggest town but there are still some houses left that aren't in too bad a shape."

Lestat does not keep up with developments in the field of psychiatry, which he generally finds both amusing and vulgar. The name is simply a pleasant arrangement of sounds to him, as most names are.

"Lestat de Lioncourt, pleased to make such a well-read acquaintance." His teeth shine in his smile, his head angled quite naturally to catch the firelight at the most flattering angle. "I'd offer you my hand, but -"

He shows off a reddened palm with good-humoured ruefulness.

"A city mouse is much cleaner than a country mouse, don't you think?" He cocks his head, still smiling. "I'll owe you that handshake the next time we meet."

"Put together a library for those here," Rorschach said with a touch of pride in his voice. It had taken him a number of months to acquire all the volumes, organize them, and get bookshelves built to hold them. But now the project was done.

But he withdrew, mentally if not physically, when Louis mentioned shaking hands. He was thankful Louis hadn't attempted to do it. That might have ended with him breaking one of the man's fingers. "Put a raincheck on it indefinitely," he said gruffly. Rorschach did not like being touched by others for any reason. Which was a paradox because at the same time he was touched starved because, though he pretended otherwise, he was still a human being who craved contact.

Milton is a town with a thriving youth population, it seems. Lestat rarely takes much interest in anyone under the age of thirty, finding them generally underdeveloped even by human standards, but he has been reconsidering this in light of the strict limitations of potential social circles.

This one seems promising enough, at first blush. He's asking useful questions. Lestat favours him with a good-humoured smile, choosing to overlook his peculiar snacking habits for the time being.

He remembers doing much the same, once. A vague impression of youth, stretched out in the woods and nibbling away on something fresh and green.

"It's venison," Lestat tells him, with an air of being pleased by his interest, "I was fortunate enough to bring down a deer, and there's far too much of it for me to eat or preserve for myself, so - a gift for the community I hope to join."

All of this is, technically, true.

"Wonderful," Lestat says, as if Levi is imparting valuable and necessary information, and not what Lestat had observed himself. He wants to cultivate a sense of pride in his abilities in the young man - it's always easier to call on someone who believes they're held in high esteem.

And it would have been helpful if Lestat really was the part he's playing, so he doesn't even count it as a true deception. The Lestat-he-is-not is genuine in his appreciation.

"Perhaps I'll be lucky, and we'll end up neighbours."

"Well, I really just sleep here." He found it easier to sleep with people around since he hadn't slept alone since he was very young. "But we'll probably see each other more often."

To be entirely fair to Tim, there was minimal spit on the stick. No reason to give it more than a second glance. So somebody please tell him why he slips it into one pocket of his jeans as he makes to stand up; he's so beyond done with nuances of status and lording it, real or perceived, over others. Tim thinks he's done gone past the event horizon, has become the dickhead who can't stand the thought of sitting when someone speaks standing and there's the tug of eternal disappointment that nobody grabbed him by his shoulders, sat his bony ass back down, and hissed oh my god Tim who the fuck cares.

Anyway.

Dude has nice blond hair, gloves and table manners, and apparently some very sharp knives.

"Well, you're in luck," Tim says. There's a hushed remnant of the wish of sleep in there. It's whatever. "Nobody in the community's gotten fed to the abyss yet. And bringing in food is going to buy you immunity from next week's vote. I'd say you're in solid standing already."

On the subject of preservation-- Tim frowns, and it's somehow a shadow different from his usual style of frown. Maybe pensive.

When it comes to food... anything, he is so woefully out of his league.

He straightens up, says, "Come on. We'll find someone who can actually do something with it."

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