lady_moon | Tarot Beach Party

There are those of the tarot who know how to set up for a party.

Ruin had spent most of the afternoon building the bonfire. He has carefully made it much in the way he would have with the villagers of his mortal life when they would celebrate the harvests. Charity, Unity, and Skill had spent most of the day setting up food, both their sorts of foods and the sorts the sentients would be expecting.

Moon watched it all with rapt fascination, her eyes on the marshmallows Skill told her firmly she isn't allowed to touch yet. But they're white and fluffy looking and Moon is curious. Mons barks at her, warning Skill, and Moon is shooed off.

It's Fortune who puts out blankets, spread all over the beach area for everyone to use. Moon watches her family set up for a party, for guests... real guests who are coming simply to come instead of for answers. She watches Fortune set down a large stack of very warm looking towels, and she grins.

Swimming. Damian will like the swimming.

Her wolves run up and down the beach in excitement, and Moon knows it's time.

Disappearing back to Milliways, she sets it up so people can come and go as they need to, pleased with herself and her family.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

wheatencrown

She gives him a thoughtful look,

"You're one of the vampires? I hope things are getting figured out. I spoke to Anita and she's such a strange woman."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

He nods, having stated his state as one of the undead when she first addressed him. There is a small, quiet chuckle at her description of Anita.

"Strange or otherwise, I am bound to her as her vampire servant. Her necromancy allows me to rise from my coffin each night." In other words, he is completely dependent on her, whether he likes it or not. It hasn't been so bad the last couple weeks, since she has needed him to help with the ardeur, but now that Nathaniel and Asher are back in her life, things are getting lonely again. She has a lot going on, yes, but he is also starting to fear that she is avoiding him again. After so many steps forward, it feels like a giant leap backward.

From:

wheatencrown

"Bound, that must be a hard thing. She is so confused about what she wants, I hope that she hasn't been hurting you along with the others."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

"She is trying. Compared to my former mistress, she is wonderful."

Notice, however, that he doesn't comment on her hurting him. She does, but he knows it isn't intentional, so he is better able to deal with it. He has endured far worse.

From:

wheatencrown

"Trying is important and she loves so clearly and she will learn to move past her own ideas."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

"The path takes time to tread," Damian agrees.

From:

wheatencrown

"It does especially for such a stubborn woman as she is, but I think she realized how much she is loved."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

"Nathaniel, Asher, Jean-Claude, and Richard. She has more love being thrown at her than most women hope for in a lifetime."

Though Anita is trying and making a small progress with him, he still doesn't believe that he loves her. He is bound to her and cares about her, but he doesn't love her. It's saddening, in a way, to be bound forever to someone with whom you can't even say you have a strong friendship.

From:

wheatencrown

"I think she's slightly scared by it but that doesn't matter now. Tell me of yourself."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

That's a command Damian doesn't do so well with.

"What do you wish to know?" Otherwise, he'll have no idea where to begin. He doesn't usually share much about himself. Most of the time, it just seems irrelevant.

From:

wheatencrown

"Where did you come from and what journey brought you to St. Louis?"

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

That, he can work with.

"I was born in Scandinavia in the late Viking Age. I was turned into a vampire when I was twenty-seven. The one who made me was a night-hag, a vampire who could feed off fear in addition to blood. I spent a little over a thousand years in her service. Jean-Claude, the Master of the City of St. Louis ransomed me from her. The council intervened on his behalf, and I was brought to St. Louis to be part of his kiss. When I nearly died in his service, Anita saved me, and I have been linked to her power instead of his ever since."

Needless to say, he has not had the most pleasant of existences. Coming to St. Louis was a relief, even if he has had many near-death experiences already in the service of Jean-Claude and Anita.

From:

wheatencrown

"So you have always been used by another?"

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

Damian thinks before answering, but eventually nods.

"One way or another, yes."

From:

wheatencrown

"Oh, child, that's not right."

Then he is hugged quite tightly, hopefully he doesn't mind.

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

Damian's eyes widen at the sudden hug. He knows that Moon and the lycanthropes have a natural tendency toward casual contact, but he hasn't for a very long time. It's only been recently that he could handle it himself without visibly recoiling. The only ones that touch him regularly are Anita, Nathaniel, and, less frequently, Micah.

Under most circumstances, he would pull away immediately, but he relies on the knowledge that this is a party, and no one who was invited would do him harm. He is very still in Demeter's arms. He'll need a little time to warm up to her.

"Right or wrong, it is the way of things. True freedom is a fantasy for a vampire like me. I will never be a master vampire, so I am dependent on another to raise me from my coffin each night. I may serve a kind master or a cruel master, but I will always serve. I am not powerful enough to do otherwise."

From:

wheatencrown

She releases him but the look she is giving him is very much a mother's look,

"You have friends though who help look after you so that you can find happiness."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

Unlike the sudden hug, that comment brings a small smile to his face.

"Only recently, but yes."

Nathaniel seems to make everything a little easier to bear, and Jason could also be counted as a friend, since he knows he can go to the werewolf to talk if he ever has need.

From:

wheatencrown

"Then that's a start. Perhaps in time, I might find myself into that number."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

"In time, perhaps," Damian says. She is kind; that much he can say for certain. He doesn't tend to trust completely those that he doesn't know, but it is like she says. Given time and a mutual desire to get to know one another, there is the possibility of friendship.

"As for the food, I'm afraid I can't enjoy anything but fresh blood. Master vampires can exchange marks with those who become their human servants or their chosen lycanthrope companions, and, through those marks, taste like the living." He looks over the fabulous display of food again. "I don't have that power. I haven't tasted food since... the feasts at my former mistress' castle before I was turned."

He doesn't even remember what he ate or drank back then. Those days are thankfully hazy to his memory unless he really concentrates on them.

From:

wheatencrown

"That's a cruel thing to have lost."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

Damian chuckles, though it isn't full of mirth like it should be. "I think it would have been easier if I hadn't been given the best food I had ever tasted right before I was turned. Cruel was typical in the service of my former mistress, especially for me. She took a particular liking to me."

Which is to say, he bore the brunt of her terror and cruelty more than most. He still doesn't know how Jean-Claude managed to ransom him, what the price was for the council to step in, because She Who Made Him most certainly didn't want to let Damian go.

From:

wheatencrown

"I hope she paid a price for treating you with such cruelty."

From:

mr-smarty-vamp.livejournal.com

"Not to my knowledge," Damian says with a tinge of regret. "She is powerful enough to sit on the Vampire Council, but she refused the open seat when it was offered to her. The others on the Council seemed a bit offended, but unless She does something to them, the will likely leave her alone simply because she is powerful enough to sit on the Council."

The powerful rule in cruelty in the vampire world. It is simply the way things have always been, to Damian's knowledge. Jean-Claude is, in his own way, revolutionary in that he has assembled a kiss built not through cruelty but respect. Those who serve Jean-Claude actually want to, with rare exceptions. Damian respects his blood-oathed master and all but owes him a life-debt for being granted a haven from his former mistress.