The Gallery

[Salvator]

S A L V A T O R :

Alaric reminded Salvator of a winding river. Much like time, rivers never truly ceased in their motion. Their only impetus was to continue flowing over the geography immediately in front of and underneath them. They had no control over the landscape, and had to obey the restrictions put upon them by land. The German was the same. He was continuous, he was unending. He was ancient, which Salvator was coming to realize. Alaric was a product of where he had been and of the terrain over which he was made to tread. The Englishman wanted to sink into that river and soak up the experience, the accumulated knowledge, the wisdom which the Von Der Marck had to offer. So powerful was the desire that as the pair of them moved towards the coffee shop, Salvator had to tell himself that he needed to keep his expectations outside of the realm of awe, and grounded more firmly in reality.

He wanted to know everything, but he know through first hand experience that knowing everything about a person was impossible. Much less someone possibly with dozens of lifetimes as the currency of wisdom to their name. People could seem so very shallow and so very easy to read, and yet it was true that people were like houses with vast rooms and small windows through which to see. The memoirist did not expect Alaric to pour out his truth all at once, and even if Alaric had, exposition could never capture the essence of a person. “Your family cares for you, but they have an idea of who you are. You want them to see you for who you are, for what you have done and for the things of which you are capable?” He asked for clarification. The matter of respect was difficult. Different cultures, nations, and generations all approached the subject in different ways. Salvator liked to think, when people said they wanted respect, what they really meant was that they wanted to be seen, and to be heard.

They arrived only a moment later. The lighting inside was warm, and it poured out onto the street. The coffee house had more the feel of a bistro than a coffee shop, with tables and chairs that overflowed from the small building onto the the sidewalk. Some effort had been made to give the location more of a cultured feel, with cement having been replaced by brick and mosaic tile. Seated outside, one could see the stars despite the slight canopy overhang attached to the front of the shop. Really though, it was too cold for people to use the metal chairs, which looked vaguely like wrought iron. Salvator held the door open for Alaric. “Your point stands.” He said in agreement. Having already discussed Isadora, how could he disagree with that? The truth was that he scarcely treated her as a person. More like a feral animal. He loathed that about their relationship.

As he had hoped, the shop was mostly barren, save for someone sweeping behind the counter. She had headphones in, and hadn’t taken note of the men yet. “The story of Isadora is a book. She and I are distant in years, as she was born when I was fifteen. I have a few really good memories of who she was when she was young, but almost no frame of reference for the woman she grew into.” He explained as his hands lifted so he could begin to rub them together, using the friction to generate much needed heat. “I agree. My mother would not want me to write her off. I don’t want to, but being near her makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s not even entirely her fault.” Which Salvator was aware sounded absolutely insane. And it needed an explanation.

“When she was fifteen, our father was teaching her how to drive. She got into a wreck, which badly injured her and resulted in his passing. She became addicted to pain relievers, but I think it wasn’t just the physical pain she was running from. She is a mess. In every sense of the word. She is the sort of person who is constantly looking for her next high, and will do anything for it. She can go from totally normal to violent in seconds. She is her addiction. I’ve tried to help . As for what she has specifically done? That’s a laundry list.” He explained. Talking about Isadora was difficult. He had been raised in a middle class English home, and the idea of airing that kind of dirty laundry just felt...wrong. In fact, he knew his father would have hated the idea of him talking so openly about his sister, because of how it made the Hasting family look.

He cleared his throat and slipped towards the front counter so he could order.

[Alaric von der Marck]

Rivers were a favourite topic of Alaric’s. Often when he compared himself to something, it wasn’t to the river but to the rock beside the river. The River represented time. It flowed onwards. It shaped things. It had a destination but that destination was almost unfathomable. The river emptied into the ocean that could represent the vastness of time; said ocean was sucked up by the clouds, which built above the cresting waves, they darkened and, weighted, they spilled water over the land, filled the dams and formed rivulets and streamed which led back to the river, and to the ocean. It was a loop, endless and tiring. And yet there was a birth and death, the bubbling of the brooks so alive and boisterous, maturing into rivers, so solemn and sincere. And then the ocean. Death, floating in the darkness. And rebirth amongst the clouds.

But Alaric was a rock, sitting at the end, unshaped by time and destined only to witness it, to watch as the water divided the earth and helped to form mountains and valleys. He was destined to watch birth and death and rebirth. It’s how he had explained it before. It was the lack of another rock that caused him grief. The inability to condemn another to the same kind of solitary existence meant that he had to spend his alone.

Salvator’s question remained unanswered as Alaric instead listened to his story about his sister. The question was one that he wanted to think about, anyway. It was an answer he’d have to look inside to find; what was it, specifically, that he wanted from his family? What did he need? Could they even provide it? Was he expecting too much? And why should he lump them all together when it was, really, only the one giving real issues? It was a question he could not answer, and one which might take days or weeks of introspection to figure out. Instead, he would focus on Salvator. Rather than follow the male to the counter, Alaric instead found them a table inside. One near the window so they could watch the world outside, but one that was at least within the warmth of the cafe, for his companion’s sake.

Alaric watched Salvator closely, his attention remaining steadfast even as the male made his way over to the table.

“Your sister is still young,” Alaric offered. He didn’t think that Salvator could be older than forty years of age, which meant that his sister could be no older than twenty five. “She has time to … what is it they say? Hit rock bottom?” he said. It was a crude analogy, and one which the elder didn’t like to use. There was more to a life than hitting rock bottom. Human life was short, like a flickering flame. In places it flared, but it would always settle down. Most of the time.

“The person who she was, she is still there. She has suffered trauma, and that is something that people all react to differently. One day, she will realise what she has lost. She cannot be helped unless she wishes to help herself,” Alaric said. It was harsh, but, he hoped, useful.

[Salvator]

S A L V A T O R :

Tea would have been Salvator’s normal choice, but he was one of those people who ironically took his coffee much stronger than he did anything else. When left to his own devices, tea was normally so watered down with fresh cream and sugar, that it was essentially as healthy as any fast food popularized carbonated beverage. When he had guests over, he mustered up a little more dignity. Besides, when someone came to visit, he had to put out a full table with cake and his preference of cucumber sandwiches. Coffee, he could take as black as the night, so long as it was also sweet. There was a special deal where the shop was temporarily selling a brand that supposedly had three times the caffeine as a normally brewed cup, and the Englishman thought to himself that it couldn’t be that odd. Surely the extra energy would help him in keeping up with someone who was more naturally nocturnal than he was. So after ordering, and dumping entirely too much sugar (he deliberately placed himself in front of the ‘self serve’ area so as to avoid Alaric getting a look at precisely what he was doing, for brief fear of being judged). He stirred the black paste at the bottom to disperse the crystals fully before taking a seat across from the German vampire, steam and styrofoam clutched between his palms.

Alaric was, of course, correct. The words he offered did little to comfort Salvator, but that was perhaps the hallmark of truth. Much like a pair of men who went into a situation looking to negotiate on a business contract - coming out of it slightly disappointed was to be expected. That was the nature of all things real. The good and the bad were both equally impermanent, but the bad was much easier to feel, to see, and to create a pattern of. Though what the German said also relieved Salvator to an extent. There were moments when doubt plagued his thoughts, and he wondered if perhaps minimizing his sister to a single moment in her life, or dismissing her as her addiction was a negative reflection on himself. The truth was that no matter how involved he might have gotten, he couldn’t change the choices Isadora had made. Nor could he make her healthy. Nor happy. Nor whole.

And that was its own foible. To think one had the power to make everything around one’s self better.

Maybe Salvator needed a lesson in accepting things that were out of his control.

“I think what I want is for her to be my family again, to feel that way. I am a man who lives in a vast house empty of the sound of anyone’s voice but my own. I have countless heirlooms on display and more stored away in trunks and closets. I have the first knit blankets made by my mother, and grandmother, and every woman in my family going back for generations. I am sentimental and traditional. I want her have those things as well, to make her own momentos.” It seemed, perhaps, like Salvator was talking about loneliness again, and though there were hints of that in what he said, the issue went deeper than that. He had never made time to make a family - not that he’d really wanted one. There were some people well equipped to deal with the pitter-patter of little feet. The Englishman was too much in his own head to know how to interact with the young. He scarcely identified with people his own age.

Who was he to judge Isadora for the things she had turned her back on when he did the same? Was there some responsibility on his shoulders to perpetuate his family name? To find a wife and settle down? Or find a partner and surrogate or…

The issue was not loneliness, but instead the matter of Salvator having lived a very full life. There were some who would have said that he’d seen enough in his few years to fill many lifetimes. But now his parents were gone, and his sister was estranged. He had no real connection to other family. He was at that place in his life where he could clearly see that there would one day be an end. Where he was evaluating the choices he’d made.

The person Salvator had been was still there. Every person he had ever been was like a mask on the wall of his gallery. From the version of himself who had romanced a young gondolier in Venice some years before, he had learned that some fires were best left quenched, no matter the warmth they promised. From the him who had blown hundreds of dollars on horse races, he had learned that Lady Luck was not his patron. There were countless mistakes he had made, and though he may have been a different man during all of them, he had learned. That was what made him hope that Isadora would eventually change. It also gave him hope for the future. Because all he needed to see the way forward was to reflect on who he had already been.

And those thoughts too came from Alaric.

That was a realization which made him feel uncommonly relaxed around the other man. “I want the best for her, but I guess that’s not my place to give either. Nor is it my choice to decide what version of her she should be, or should want to be. I guess the only thing I can really want for her is to be happy wherever she is or whatever she’s doing. But I can hope that one day the person she decides to be will be compatible with who I am at the time. She’s my flesh and my blood.” He left it at that, sipping his coffee.

[Alaric von der Marck]

There was something in immortality that sapped the humanity out of someone. For the younger vampires it was not so much an issue; they had not yet lived out what would have been their natural lives. Behaving human was still within their repertoire because it was habit. Soon enough they would discontinue the shifting and the fidgeting and the way a human body leans so as to be comfortable. There were no more muscle cramps, no more itches on skin that is neither dry nor too oily. Alaric had to remind himself to blink, even, with preternatural eyes that no longer required moisture. Those eyes sat like sharp sapphires, the light cutting through the unnaturally -- sometimes-blue-sometimes-green-veined. The colour changed depending on the angle, or the way they reacted to the light.

Salvator moved with all the particularities that belonged to a human being. The way his fingers clutched at the coffee, clinging for warmth. The way he settled. The scent of the coffee was strong, bitter, offset by sweet. Sugar. What did the choice of beverage tell him about the man sitting before him? Alaric could taste the scent on his tongue; only a small consolation. Compared to Salvator, Alaric sat much like a statue. He leaned back in his chair, his palms flat upon his thighs, his feet flat on the linoleum floor.

“It is the problem with wanting what is best for someone else,” Alaric uttered, his own voice resonating coolly in the warmth of their surrounds. Another customer had walked in, a gush of cold air swirling around them, disturbing the man-made heat. Was this what Prometheus had intended when he gave humanity fire? That they should use it to one day create electric contraptions that would do the same thing, but with less danger of destruction? And yet it was humanity’s forward momentum, its habit of replacing nature with plastic and metal and electricity, that was slowly murdering this planet they inhabited.

“What you think is best for them may not be what will make them happy,” he said. Though it did not seem that Salvator was happy in his house with its emptiness. And he wondered if Salvator’s wants for his sister were purely selfless, or whether there was a need to relate to another human being, to have the comfort of familiarity and presence.

“I too know what it is like to live in a large house and feel alone within it,” he said. There were once more voices that had filled the halls of the von der Marck Estate, but the younger folk had their independence and their own lives. They had their daytime activities, and often slept while Alaric stalked the halls. “I too have helped those whom I have wanted the best for -- many have taken the generosity and used it in ill ways,” he added. He was thinking of the extended family, the empire of von der Marck Industries, the corruption and the greed that had infected its higher ranks. How long ago had it started? How far had the rot spread?

“What I have learned is that too much meddling in the lives of others only upsets them. Advice is not always heard as wisdom, but as … authority, where authority is not wanted. It is best to only offer support should it be required, remind them of the support you may give, but let them find their way to you on their own terms,” he said. It could be a lonely existence, setting oneself apart from others. But sometimes the divide was far too large a gap to bridge.

[Salvator]

S A L V A T O R :

The coffee was not amazing, but the sugar helped, and already Salvator could feel the drink doing its job. Perhaps some of the effects were subconsciously driven, but he almost immediately felt warmth settle in his chest as the coffee cascaded towards his stomach - and then spread slowly outwards from there. He could almost feel his focus sharpen. Perhaps it was Pavlovian; how many times had he stayed up for hours finishing up a manuscript whilst drowning himself in hot drinks, when struck by a powerful bolt of inspiration? That was usually how he described it when asked how he managed to produce his work (or art, depending on one’s perspective). It was like lightning. He took weeks and months to interview and take notes, to research, and follow the tracks of a person until he could very well have imitated them, become them, crept into their skin and worn it as his own. Then there was this abrupt turning point at which he suddenly was hit with what he wanted to write, and he usually churned out the actual book in a few short days. In that time, he was essentially sequestered, and seemed to actually dislike human contact. Yet another reason for his having never held onto anyone for more than a few years, save for the very core of his family. He had a number of past lovers who had not understood the guiding hand of Ananke in his life.

There was one particular point in his past when he’d been living in Italy and he had been working on a piece about the leader of a cult who had been implicated for orchestrating (though not participating in) the murder of more than a dozen young women (the apparent implication was that they were virginal, if not actually chaste). At the time, Salvator had been dating a local by the name of Mattia - a restorer of paintings from antiquity. He had been a handsome man with the smoothest olive skin, and eyes like two burning coals. Though not immediately remarkable, those eyes possessed a certain animated intelligence - as if they would have been at home in the skull of a general or other master of strategy. Of course, Salvator had been much younger then, and they had fought near constantly. It had been the way of their communication. They had been wild and passionate, and after Salvator had ‘woken’ from the fugue of his writing process, Mattia had been gone. It had been literally a week until the Englishman even realized, and then he’d been afflicted by this deep sense of loss.

A note had been left behind detailing the list of criminal offenses Salvator had committed. How he hadn’t returned calls. How he had brushed Mattia off when the man went to touch him. How he hadn’t even bothered to engage in their normal youthful histrionics. He had been compared to a possessed man. Naturally, Salvator hadn’t tried to fix anything. He had crumbled the paper up and tossed it in the refuse bin. Such was arrogance of youth perhaps.

“Yes, but I’m clearly and demonstrably right.” He said with a smile and then a bit of a chuckle, before he lifted a hand, waving it through the air back and forth as if to clear away the words. “You are correct again. I don’t mean for pride to be my vice. I’d much rather something that will kill me slowly, like sloth or gluttony. I want her happiness, and I want her health. Perhaps one day Isadora will find her way back to me.” He commented. That was the bottom line really. He didn’t know where she was. He could probably have hired a private detective, but she needed to come to him if she wanted to be helped. For all he knew, maybe she had checked herself into rehab. Maybe she was finding a way to make her life better. Though there was something about that scenario Salvator didn’t like either. For one, the idea of her being able to take care of herself without his influence was somewhat appalling. Which. Perhaps highlighted the problem. He had to wonder if he really wanted what was best for her, or if he wanted to rescue her. More of that arrogance. He began to distance himself from those thoughts though. Sometimes it was best not to delve too deeply into one’s own instinctual motivations.

There was a burst of chill, and his shoulders hunched inwards for a second without thought. His grip on his cup of coffee tightened just a little. “I would imagine, my friend, if anyone can speak from a position of authority, it would be you. Me? Not so much. The world is a vast library of knowledge, and I’ve read a single line of a single page.” Ahh, that was better. A little humility to offset his earlier thoughts of superiority - Catholic guilt tempering his natural inclination. “Though again, I agree with you.” He commented with a vague sigh. He glanced into Alaric’s eyes a little more intently. They were seated across from each other, so there were a limited number of places for his gaze to settle, and anything other than peering into (or around) those sapphires seemed almost rude.

The German really did have beautiful eyes - not just their chromatic nature, but the solidness about them. Salvator could have stared into them for ages, because they were so sure and strong. Confident? Not necessarily open in the sense of being vulnerable, but still the gaze was soothing, not because it was warm and giving, but because those eyes belonged to someone who knew what they were about. And when Salvator looked into them, he felt some of that sureness settle into his bones as if by osmosis. The Englishman’s smile grew just a little.

“We have been talking about me a lot. Tell me some about this home of yours, and why you feel alone in it.” In truth, Salvator wanted to reach across the table and clasp the man by the shoulder, give that part of him a squeeze. There was part of the man which wanted to offer up comfort - even if it wasn’t asked for nor needed. Of course, he had no clue if touching a vampire was a good idea, or if it would be well received. He had just met Alaric neither wanted to presume nor offend. So he kept to his seat, even though he shifted his weight in such a way that it was likely obvious he’d been considering doing something, and thought better of it. That was empathy at play. Maybe the stoic Alaric did not mind being alone. Normally Salvator did not. He had lived most of his life with fickle companionship. Just now though, he was at a place where he craved more solid bonds and deeper roots.

[Alaric von der Marck]

A small smile touched the corner or Alaric’s lips. Yes, they had been talking a lot about Salvator -- but he would not let on that that had been his plan. Had Salvator not noticed the way the elder curtailed the conversation, turned it around so that the spotlight was not on the vampire and his odd life but instead on the life of the human who did not mind sharing it?

Although Alaric would much prefer to talk about better ways to die than Sloth or Gluttony -- both vices that the elder abhorred, if he was going to be honest -- he knew that he couldn’t keep the walls so tight around his own stories. He didn’t have to give anything away. There was no reason why he had to give more than he wanted to give.

“You speak of vices, and they are in part why a large home will feel too large for one person,” Alaric said, slowly. It was an easy enough segue. He shook his head. “I would not wish to succumb to sloth or to gluttony, as they are selfish pursuits. The home… it was built to house many. A family. Many families, over time. There are many men who might enjoy wandering its halls dressed only in gown and knowing they will speak to no one, they will hear no other footsteps in the hall. But I am not one of them,” Alaric said, his palms still flat on the surface of the diner’s table. How many hands had splayed where his were now? How many generations had this table seen? Was it as new and fresh as many of the faces around them? No. The wood beneath the varnish could be old; could be. Though given the industry that produced it, it might be younger even than the young man sitting across from Alaric.

The thought of time, of his own age, sometimes stirred anxiety within the elder. He stopped contemplating the wood and instead focused on Salvator. Alaric had no qualms about holding eye contact. How much of what he was saying would the young man understand? Sloth and gluttony, he’d hoped, would slowly kill him. Perhaps he was one of the men who would not mind a large empty house, so long as it was filled with history, and memory.

“To live in such a large house mostly on my own feels gluttonous, poisonous. To leave it empty, perhaps, might be worse. But if I relocate… it will be somewhere my hands may be busy,” he added, now turning those still palms over, now contemplating the creases that had been etched over time, frozen at the time of his death. There was hard work written into those lines, now visible for Salvator to peer at more closely. Alaric honestly did not know whether he would feel better in a smaller home; whether it would make him feel less alone. But, he had time to figure it out. He had freedom on his side.

[Salvator]

S A L V A T O R :

Salvator was reminded of his early childhood. He had known the sound of his mother and father’s voices from the start, because they had always been there. They were the voices which had existed before time began. But theirs weren’t the only ones. He had two aunts on his father’s side who lived in the same area, and with them came their husbands. Those voices too, were part of who he had been as a youth. How many nights a week was it that their dinner table was open to friends and family alike? His mother and aunts would put together meals - with the occasional aid of his grandparents and then everyone ate together and talked together. For hours, this would happen. Everyone was always free to bring a guest, to find someone new to add into the mix who had a good story to tell. In fact, that had been how Salvator first experienced his love for learning about people. And it was this amorphous concept which was family, was it not? Sharing blood mattered, but that was a concept adults concerned themselves with. Children thought of family as those faces and voices which were most familiar to them.

Empathy was a cool wave which crested high and curled in on itself before crashing against the shoreline which was the space between Salvator’s ribs.

Alaric had built a home with his own two hands, a home which was meant to be a place for his people to grow and to prosper and to thrive. He had built a home which had been meant as a place to hear the immediately recognizable laughter of those he loved. He was telling a story of tragedy. Or perhaps just a story of life. Of how he had gone in with good intentions, only to be given nothing in return. Once again, that urge in Salvator grew. He wanted to squeeze the other man’s arm and offer up some reassurances. But what could he say? He had assumed errantly that it was a matter of legacy which had concerned the German, but that wasn’t true at all. At least not in full. Alaric was suffering from the loss of his family as he knew them. There were no familiar voices for him. No dinner conversations between loved ones. No stories told over and over between people until they entered the realm of familial lore.

Was that the point at which a home became a husk? It was a shell, devoid of the soul which would have given the wood inside of it life. Where were the people Alaric could call his own? Did they see his hands which had built them a home? Did they ever think about the sweat and love he’d poured out of himself for them? Maybe things given too freely were too easy to take for granted.

Did they not see the very same steps they took on the same floors, in the same halls were the same steps he had taken possibly countless times before?

Salvator really understood it then. In a way, Alaric was mourning what might have been, and what it had become.

His eyes were an ocean storm. “Keeping one’s hands busy is the best way to deal with the worst parts of life.” He commented. Though to his ear, that sounded too much like an attempt at persuasion. Maybe Alaric was not ready to give up his home, or the idea of family which it represented. Which was not to say that leaving would necessarily take his family from him, but it was a symbolic gesture if ever there was one. Wiping one’s hands of the past with the idea of moving forward was revolutionary in its own way. And revolutions were usually fraught with their own dangers. “I’m sure no matter what you decide on, it will be what’s best for you.” He decided to settle on as he leaned back in his seat, his coffee essentially forgotten under the burden of his introspection. His hands slipped together in front of him on that table. “Though if you do decide to move, you should let me help. I’m craving doing the things which will pull me into this new life I’m living.”

[Alaric von der Marck]

For a few long moments, Alaric was lost.

Those gem-like eyes were glazed over as he considered the future. It stretched out in front of him like the ocean stretches out from a beach, the blueness of it disappearing into a hazy horizon. It doesn’t have an end. From that vantage point, with one’s toes stuck so securely in the sand, there are no other continents. The earth is not a round thing that soon begins where it ends. From that vantage point, it goes on and on without reprieve.

There were other reasons, the elder knew, why he would move from the Estate and into a smaller hamlet of his own. They are selfish reasons. He does not know that any of them wish to take on the mantle of immortality and those that had shown interest were now in the family way, and he was not certain it was a good idea. In future, perhaps; his own children were nearly grown when immortality caught him unawares. They knew what their father had become, and eventually they had accepted it. It was not an impossibility that Leonie’s child would accept it, too. That Leonie’s child might know, from as early as she or he could remember, that they lived overlooked by a vampire. It would not be a foreign nor terrifying concept. It would be normal.

Judah, he knew, kept his child safe; they lived, as far as Alaric was aware, with a Paladin. Begrudgingly, he could accept that at least both Judah and son would be safe from other vampires, the rabid kind. The anarchic kind, that cared naught for humanity or its survival. Living with a Paladin who clearly had issues with vampires, however, Alaric doubted that Judah would ever want to become one. One side of the story was being presented, and Alaric’s arrival had caused Judah too much pain to be associated with anything good, with anything that he might want. It saddened Alaric, but that was how life unfolded.

And he didn’t want to watch them grow old and pass away. He’d done that too many times to count. And perhaps, if he took himself out of those halls, out of the place where he was not needed, a place where respect for patriarchy was dead, then it was a pain he might free himself of, in part. But then, he could never be so sure. Perhaps the young did not think that they needed him, until such a time that they did. And only he would know when that time was.

Truly, he was still of two minds.

He blinked, and brought himself back to the present, and the pleasant young man sitting across from him.

“If I do not move and you wish to keep your hands busy, the large house has a larger garden, and fields that require tending. It will be… night time work, but it is still work that requires doing,” Alaric said. It was an invitation -- and he did not give those out often. The family home was a sacred space, where the von der Marck lineage ought to feel safe and protected. To invite strangers was to invite danger -- but Alaric could sense no danger from Salvator.

“What is the new life that you are living…?” he asked, curious.

[Salvator]

S A L V A T O R :

He considered the invitation for a moment. The wealth of a man could be summed up by the things he held close to his chest. For some, this was family, friends, loved ones. There were others who only cared about money or fame or glory. Salvator’s father had been one of those men whose sole ambition was to provide a safe haven for his children. Home and hearth. He had only ever worked hard to give his son and daughter opportunities, but never worked so hard that he missed watching them grow up. In doing so, the former patriarch of the Hastings household had made a place not only for his young, but for everyone with significance to his heart.

Salvator had never really cared about those things, not in the past. Not when he had them in abundance. He’d been focused on career, and travel, on intellectual pursuits and meeting his many life goals. His endeavours had not been particularly bad, but they had not been noble, no matter how many people they may have helped. He knew, when he looked back, that everything he’d done had been for himself. Now? Now he craved what he had been given without question in his youth. He wanted that home and that warmth. He had not reacted so strongly when his father had died, but perhaps he had been so angry with his sister, so quick to blame her for the loss that he hadn’t even considered…

And now his mother was gone, and still Salvator blamed Isadora. Was he any better? Had he not abandoned the family which had given him everything?

Suddenly, the idea of returning to his own house, immaculate as it was, with its cold halls and dark walls seemed the most unappealing thing.

“I would very much like to keep my hands busy.” He confided. Odd. He had been intrigued by the other man’s vampirism, and yet it didn’t seem to matter at all. It was not, it seemed, all that important, when one was trying to connect on a human level. And yet there were hints of it everywhere. Night work, Alaric called it. “I would love to see your home. A tour now would be fantastic, time permitting.” He offered. It was, by far, more for himself than for Alaric, and he knew that. He was ill dressed to work any field. Actually, he had never done anything that involved bringing life from the ground. He was likely to be a liability. But Alaric was his first real friend since having moved, and learning a new skill seemed more intriguing than any number of other hobbies men frequently enjoyed.

“As for my new life, I mean my life here. This place. It seems troubled, but this is where I have decided to lay down roots. This is not another leg on a journey for me. I’m not here in hopes of writing another memoir, only to jet off back to Europe. I want to live in Harper Rock.” It was said that all children eventually became their parents in some way, and that was exactly what had happened with Salvator. He had come to Canada without really knowing what drew him. It had been like this phantom force pulling at his soul. He had known he wanted to learn more about vampires, about the vast history they represented. He knew he wanted to archive for them, the things they had seen. What he had not known when he had set up to move across the ocean was that he was also looking for a place, not only to call his own, but to provide and share with those most weighty in his heart.

Now he just had to make that happen. And Alaric seemed like the perfect man to learn from.

He moved to stand. His coffee was gone, and he felt strangely sure of himself, having come to realize a number of things about himself. “We can continue our conversation there, if you like.”

[Alaric von der Marck]

Alaric had not expected such a quick turnaround. One second they were sitting there making plans that the elder thought might happen a few nights from now, even the following week. At least the next night. Instead, Salvator was on his feet, asking Alaric if right now would be okay. At first, Alaric did not move. He was not used to this kind of behaviour; he’d met Salvator only an hour, perhaps two, beforehand. As genuine as the young man seemed to be, Alaric was wary. He was always wary. A man could not help but be wary when his death and consequent two-century stay in a hellish limbo had been due to betrayal.

But then, that betrayal had not come from a stranger, but from someone he’d known and trusted. From family. So what was the difference if he allowed a stranger onto the estate? He could be a hunter. He could be trying to get the vampire alone, alerting colleagues as to the location so that they could burn it to the ground. These scenarios and more flit through the elder’s mind in quick succession, before he, too, eventually rose to his feet.

Salvator had been honest with Alaric. He could have been a good actor, that was true. But somehow Alaric knew that the stories Salvator had told were genuine. They were too true, too close to home, too honest. Too detailed for it to be wool pulled over Alaric’s eyes. He led Salvator to the door and opened it, allowing Salvator through before following behind him.

“It is a troubled city, but I think that is why good people need to stay. It needs help, it needs a good force, a good base so that it does not descend into ruin, and death,” Alaric said. It was a bleak future that he painted, but if things went downhill then the humans would turn on the vampires, whom they feared and hated, whom they did not understand. There would be fire and destruction. There were too many vampires for it to be a quiet affair. And with technology the way it was this day and age, it might even be quick. As risky as it was, it was better that as many humans as possible were on their side and remained within the city. Surely the government would not drop a bomb from the sky if they’d kill as many innocents as the undead? Surely they would not try, knowing that the undead could only return, while the innocents would remain dead forever.

“I do not drive. Nor do I like motor vehicles, though they are a necessary evil. Do you drive?” he inquired of Salvator once out on the footpath. If Salvator did not drive, then they would call a taxi. It would be the easiest way for them to reach their destination; as happy as Alaric might have been to walk, in this weather he would not subject a human to the distance.