The Talamasca Motherhouse

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

The top of the tower was cold, the winter air filtering in through the large gaps of windows in the walls. She paused in the door, listening to his footsteps, and when she continued on she left the door open for him. "You can see half of the city from here," she commented quite simply, stepping up into the large window and sitting quietly down with her legs dangling over the side of the tower. "David comes here to think. Singe used to use it to sneak in and out of the castle without everyone pestering him." Giving a soft sigh, she cast her gaze over her shoulder. "Singe generally wakes an hour after sunset. Another half an hour and he'll be ready to go. But I wonder, will you come with us or linger here?"

"I'll come with you, of course." Vikteren said, watching the wind play with her hair, his own briefly obscuring his vision before he raised a hand to push it behind his ear. "There really isn't much here for me." He didn't mention that the threat of David's inquiries set his nerves more than a little on edge, as well...  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"David can find something in any word you say. He can divine things from your sentence structuring, the words you choose for use. Exercise caution around David; he's clever." A light little grin appeared on her face as the thought struck her and she sat suddenly staring pointedly into the distance. Presently she raised a hand, held it before her until a single drop of rain was forced into her palm, and all at once the flurries of snow were drifting down lazily, contrived weather. The chill came down with them, the sharp freeze of the spirits acting on Antha's will. "It's pretty, don't you think?" she asked softly, leaning forward so that the snowflakes became entwined with her crimson hair, glittering like little jewels, "When it snows, people will either crowd a dozen public places or run out to frolic in the flurries, distracted, with not one eye upon them."

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

"David can find something in any word you say. He can divine things from your sentence structuring, the words you choose for use. Exercise caution around David; he's clever." A light little grin appeared on her face as the thought struck her and she sat suddenly staring pointedly into the distance. Presently she raised a hand, held it before her until a single drop of rain was forced into her palm, and all at once the flurries of snow were drifting down lazily, contrived weather. The chill came down with them, the sharp freeze of the spirits acting on Antha's will. "It's pretty, don't you think?" she asked softly, leaning forward so that the snowflakes became entwined with her crimson hair, glittering like little jewels, "When it snows, people will either crowd a dozen public places or run out to frolic in the flurries, distracted, with not one eye upon them."

"Yes, it's beauti--" He stopped, suddenly realizing the double edge to her words. The muddied gaze set upon Antha, faintly...surprised. And then the vampire spoke again, more softly. "A perfect hunting ground. I see."
He stepped behind her, and watched the dark shapes on the ground, staring upwards. A child laughed with delight at the unexpected white flakes--with a vampire's acute hearing, it sounded like they were right next to them.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"It's a chain reaction." Vikteren's thoughts disturbed her only slightly. After all, what more could one expect from them. "Normal people execute one another on a daily basis. Beings who dare to walk in deserted streets often find themselves in confrontation. Why? Because they draw out the more undesirable creatures of the human race." Silently she grabbed Vikteren's hand, her mind somewhere off in the distance with the umbra, in an old, filthy apartment where a man watched the children playing. It was disgustingly cliche, but that was Antha's intent as she forced the image into his mind. "Sleet and Persephone are devils, plucking children and innocents from the streets to drain the life from their withering flesh. But if you're going to kill a living, breathing being, isn't it best to pick one just as wicked as them?"

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

"It's a chain reaction." Vikteren's thoughts disturbed her only slightly. After all, what more could one expect from them. "Normal people execute one another on a daily basis. Beings who dare to walk in deserted streets often find themselves in confrontation. Why? Because they draw out the more undesirable creatures of the human race." Silently she grabbed Vikteren's hand, her mind somewhere off in the distance with the umbra, in an old, filthy apartment where a man watched the children playing. It was disgustingly cliche, but that was Antha's intent as she forced the image into his mind. "Sleet and Persephone are devils, plucking children and innocents from the streets to drain the life from their withering flesh. But if you're going to kill a living, breathing being, isn't it best to pick one just as wicked as them?"

Vikteren flinched back from the image, and avoided her gaze. Instead, he watched the snowflakes, leaning out over the windowsill and refusing to look at her. "Who am I, and who are you to judge who should live and who should die, Antha?" he said quietly. With a pang, he recalled Aaron's narrative of the missing half-Mayfair's. And he could not help but wonder who had judged them.
He did not want to believe that it had been Antha.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"As part of the human race, more or less, we do the best we can. All one may do is use what they know and pass their judgement and pray it is for the best. Every creature that thinks does it every day of their life. But what can I say---I don't pretend to be good. I'm a wicked creature and I know it well. " Her eyes darknened clouded, and all at once, unnoticed to her own self, she gripped Vikteren's hand tightly, forcing her memories and even her very feelings back into the deepest recesses of her mind . It's all we can do... Dizzy, she felt she would fall from the window. Certainly it wasn't a pleasant idea, and so she gripped the walls and scrambled further back into the room, just a little too fast so that almost immediately she was tumbling backwards from the windowsill and down towards the stone floor.

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

"As part of the human race, more or less, we do the best we can. All one may do is use what they know and pass their judgement and pray it is for the best. Every creature that thinks does it every day of their life. But what can I say---I don't pretend to be good. I'm a wicked creature and I know it well. " Her eyes darknened clouded, and all at once, unnoticed to her own self, she gripped Vikteren's hand tightly, forcing her memories and even her very feelings back into the deepest recesses of her mind . It's all we can do... Dizzy, she felt she would fall from the window. Certainly it wasn't a pleasant idea, and so she gripped the walls and scrambled further back into the room, just a little too fast so that almost immediately she was tumbling backwards from the windowsill and down towards the stone floor.

Vikteren seized her other hand before she could fall and pulled her close to him, stepping back from the window. "Are you alright?" he asked, relaxing his hold only when he felt her steady. As well as being completely distracted from the original topic of conversation, although if he hadn't, he might have said something typically cryptic and inscrutable about the nature of a vampire's existence as a predator and the symbiotic relationship between human and parasite, et cetera...
But he didn't.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

She grabbed onto him the moment she felt his grip on her hand, dizzied, feeling the slight absence of blood strongly. Antha was naturally too weak a person to overexcite herself when something was amiss. Such being the case, not a moment after she had finally steadied herself she fell back to the cold stones of the floor, legs folded beneath her pitifully. "I never asked for it," she whispered softly, hazy eyes gazing steadily down to the floor and then to Vikteren. "I never wanted it either. But..." A little sigh emitted from her and her gaze went back to the floor. "I didn't want to drag them away. My cousins---my b*****d brothers and sisters by Julien---my family. And then they just broke. They fell apart like little dolls in my hands and there was something about it, like it was right, and I didn't know what to do." Of anything that could have run smoothly through her mind, Antha could think only of how glad she was that Aaron wasn't around to hear her. "That's what you wanted to hear, right? That I'm guilty?"

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

She grabbed onto him the moment she felt his grip on her hand, dizzied, feeling the slight absence of blood strongly. Antha was naturally too weak a person to overexcite herself when something was amiss. Such being the case, not a moment after she had finally steadied herself she fell back to the cold stones of the floor, legs folded beneath her pitifully. "I never asked for it," she whispered softly, hazy eyes gazing steadily down to the floor and then to Vikteren. "I never wanted it either. But..." A little sigh emitted from her and her gaze went back to the floor. "I didn't want to drag them away. My cousins---my b*****d brothers and sisters by Julien---my family. And then they just broke. They fell apart like little dolls in my hands and there was something about it, like it was right, and I didn't know what to do." Of anything that could have run smoothly through her mind, Antha could think only of how glad she was that Aaron wasn't around to hear her. "That's what you wanted to hear, right? That I'm guilty?"

The vampire shook his head silently, and knelt beside her. In truth, it...he would have been lying to himself if he said he did not care. But whether Antha Mayfair was insane or not, murderer or not, whatever she might be or might become, he wanted to be with her. And when he was around her, everything else...her past, her deeds...somehow seemed inconsequential. "These are not my affairs, Antha." he said quietly. "And I am not your judge, or your conscience, or your persecutor." Then he stood, and offered her his hand.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

She was a bit shocked when she looked up at him again, her head clearing from the haze. "I didn't kill them," she said, surprisingly calm for the words she spoke, "It was my fault, I'm certain, that their deaths came about but it wasn't I who did the deed." Quietly she took his hand and returned to her feet. It was as she rose though, reluctant as she might have been to do it, that she forced into his head a rapid stream of images, too quick to catch the entirety of them. Slow enough to watch Lawrence with the broom in his hand, beating the gasping figure under the bed, to see the half-blood Nanette hung from the high ceiling by rope, yet too quick to see who who it was Antha had knocked to the floor or why Illium was sobbing and bloody on the floor. She couldn't possibly stress enough to him what it was he was getting himself into by lurking around her.
Antha made sure her balance was decent before she let go again. This time she even felt well enough to call Singe to her, invading his mind so violently that he would have no choice but to wake up. After all, Antha was dreadfully tired of waiting.

 

[ninja of Persia]

Sabata needed a place to think. He flew high up, looking for a secluded looking place to go. The abandoned house on the mountain caught his eye, it would do for a while. He shot toward it, angling at the last second to fly straight up the mountain and the walls of the building. He slowed as he reached the higghest point on the building, coming to a rest on the roof. He sat there and just gazed at the city spread out beneath him. He was so focused, he didn't even sense other people nearby.
((AHH! I posted in the wrong room, sorry xd ))  

[.David Talbot.]

Singe was up thrashing and yelling before he knew he was even awake. He had a delicate mental structure. Such intrusions were painful to the boy. "Brat Princess!" he announced when he burst into the top of the tower, the first word roared like a curse. "You could've gone and bashed my head a few times or dragged me down the hall---" As he spoke, his eyes darkened. He knew that look on Antha's face, knew it better than anyone else did, and he was far too familiar with that sense of guilt hanging around her. He was immediately frightened, curious of what she had done or said, but he kept talking. "---but noooooooo~. The Brat Princess has to go stabbing minds and giving orders. Go act human every once in a while." Finished but still fuming he sat down on the floor, legs and arms crossed tightly.

 

[Vikteren]

.David Talbot.

Singe was up thrashing and yelling before he knew he was even awake. He had a delicate mental structure. Such intrusions were painful to the boy. "Brat Princess!" he announced when he burst into the top of the tower, the first word roared like a curse. "You could've gone and bashed my head a few times or dragged me down the hall---" As he spoke, his eyes darkened. He knew that look on Antha's face, knew it better than anyone else did, and he was far too familiar with that sense of guilt hanging around her. He was immediately frightened, curious of what she had done or said, but he kept talking. "---but noooooooo~. The Brat Princess has to go stabbing minds and giving orders. Go act human every once in a while." Finished but still fuming he sat down on the floor, legs and arms crossed tightly.

"Ah, but she's so charming just the way she is," Vikteren said, tossing Singe a glance over one shoulder, and a smile. He started towards the door, stepping around the sulking vampire child. "Are we going hunting or not?"  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Of course," she answered instantly, a broad smile directed at Vikteren. A smile from Antha that was not wicked or secretive or utterly fake, merely bright as this one was, was a considerably rare sight. "But Mikael doesn't like using the front doors." She paused, her eyes only for Singe suddenly, to put a hand on his head and work her fingers through his thick mass of dark red hair, teasing him. "So unless you want us to leave without you, I suggest you get up, ducky dear. Who else is going to take me?" There was a fake look of concern on her face, a pout almost, roughly masking a smile.

 

[.David Talbot.]

His reaction to Vikteren's comment, and of course Antha's too brilliant smile, was a glare and a small hiss, inaudible to human ears, all in Vikteren's direction. Singe was not about to share her. "Yeah, yeah," he groaned in irritance, springing gracefully to his feet without use of any other body part and rapidly rushing to Antha and lifting her effortlessly, like a feather, just in case Vikteren would dare to offer her his assistance. "I'm starved," he whined at last, hopping into the window sill that Antha had sat on, one hand grasping the outer edge of it before he plunged down in nothing flat, on the ground at the edge of the woods in an instant, waiting for Vikteren. Their white skin and red hair, his and Antha's both, would make it hard for a vampire not to notice them against the black and dark green of the grass and forest.