My World is fire and blood

“That’s really sweet of you. Thank you so much.” He smiled brightly, happy to have met someone as nice as Nick. It had been a while since he’d felt actually comfortable around someone. Nightingale looked up at the other, listening intently to everything he said. “What were you doing there?…Sorry..Never mind..You don’t have to answer..I didn’t mean to pry.” He always felt bad asking questions. It was just something he did when he was trying to get to know and understand someone better. “Are you sure? I don’t mind looking some more. I really don’t.” He bit his bottom lip as he stopped his searching, blue eyes moving up to look at the other male. “Um…Well…What did you want to do then?”

The man gave a stifled laugh as Night stumbled around with his words. “Don’t worry so much. I’m  a--was a Staff Sergeant in the Marine Corps. We were stationed there. Accident took my tank, I was dying and this guy, this vampire turned me to save me. Born again, only, you know, without the promise of salvation.” Even in his more somber moods, he had a sense of humor. “Vampire-turning wasn’t exactly the religious absolution I was going for. No, we don’t have to keep looking, it’ll turn up. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe the dormouse needs it more.” He took Night’s hand and carted him off down another corridor, searching high and low for a library or game room of some sort. “This place needs pool, or air hockey, or Rock Band or something.”

“Then why come to a place where that’s what the higher species views us as. I’m confused, so please enlighten me,” Arashi muttered as he moved to lean against a covered table for a moment to inspect his hand. After a moment he stuck his wiped the bit of blood off his hand and then continued on his search. “Yeah…I know. Few areas where masters and guards don’t go either. Used to hide out in them when we weren’t all confined to little cells. Don’t get out much now.” He bit his bottom lip lightly as he tried to search a bit more for the trinket. However, soon enough he was sitting down on a small covered couch, leaning back to watch as the man went about looking for the thing. “Is it important? The trinket I mean.”

“Well, I didn’t know what this place was, just was told to come here.” He set one of the photos down after inspecting it and turned to face the boy. “I was turned, like, almost three years ago? I think? Time flies. It was just me an’ him for a little while. He taught me the very little bit I know, he was quite the hermit. Anyway, I don’t enjoy being this way, you know. Goat blood?” He made a face. Nick had never eaten anything live before, animal or otherwise, and had no clue what blood could taste like. “I miss food-food. Still try to eat it. But--” Back to searching. “Not sure what to do with my life. They told me this place is good for my kind--boy were they wrong.” Besides living free among prisoners, his own type were about as friendly and welcoming as a bludgeon to the head. Nick took a seat on the sofa next to Arashi, obviously defeated. “It was a coin from my dad. His 1 year chip from AA. Not important, I’m just a sentimental dick. I have another chip of his somewhere, but, that one was significant I guess.”

“That I’m what?” Arashi turned to look at the man, giving him a light smile as he turned his head to the side. “That I’m a slave? A toy? Whatever the hell the vampires here like to call us? That’s one big detail to forget.” After a moment he dropped down to his knees to look into the hole, sliding his arm out to feel around in the dark hollow of the wall. “No problem.” He muttered, continuing to move his hand about until it brushed something sharp and he let out a light hiss of pain before pulling his hand back. “Not in there,” he muttered, sitting up.

As Arashi picked up the piece Nick didn’t want to say, he felt himself crumble from the inside out. He shut his eyes and swore at himself under his breath. “Wasn’t that I necessarily forgot, so to say--I just-- I guess I don’t see you like that, more so than I do as prisoners?” There was a difference, he felt. While Arashi put his hands in strange, dark holes (bless this guy for trying), Nick started searching drawers and behind objects, more for other interesting things. If it wasn’t evident, he had given up on his own trinket and that damn dormouse. “You know this place has secret passages? One of the younger vamps took me through one. But I don’t know where they all are.” 

Nightingale paused in his looking to bring his eyes up to look at the man, biting his bottom lip lightly. “You’d do that? Try to make things easier?” He hadn’t really heard those words in a very long time. Someone who was willing to make life easier. “Me? I lived out in a cabin in the woods. My mother kept me there. Never let me wander far. She was afraid of vampires getting to me.” He paused for a moment when he found a few little jewels. “What about you?”

“Of course. I’d share whatever I could. Help however possible. If you wanted, of course.” Not to sound pushy or assertive. He just wanted to help. Night’s predicament was almost amusing. Here Night was, far from home, living among vampires, hanging out with a living, breathing vampire. “Nothing fabulous. I was born in Pittsburgh, raised by a drunk. I guess my only claim to something cool is I was born in a Taxi cab. So they tell me. Mom died shortly after, so I never met her, but I hear she was amazing.” The vampire gave a shrug. “Just spent the last decade and a half pickin’ sand outta’ my ass on tour in Iran-Iraq--who the fuck knows, every desert looks the same after months of wandering around in it--I give up on this. It’s not that important and I have you searching for me? Nah, let’s get outta’ here. You should be enjoying your time out, not looking for a dormouse with me.”

rcoai | rcoan | rloan | rloai | rluai | rluan | rcuan | rcuai | rcoei | rcoen | rloen | rloei |rluei | rluen | rcuen | rcuei | scoai | scoan | sloan | sloai | sluai | sluan | scuan |scuai | scoei | scoen | sloen | sloei | sluei | sluen | scuen | scuei

social | reserved | limbic | calm | organized | unstructured | accommodating |egocentric | non-curious | inquisitive

R-DRIVE - 5 Min.

Narcissism | Unconventionality | Empiricism | Vitality | Othercentricism |Independence | Integrity | Intellect | Stoicism | Orderliness | Hedonism |Dynamism | Activity | Romanticism

ROSENBERG SELF-ESTEEM SCALE - 2 Min.

1 - 3 | 4 - 6 | 7 - 9 | 10 - 12 | 13-15 | 16 -18 | 19 -21 | 22 - 24 | 25 - 27 | 28 - 30

SEME/UKE (TOP/BOTTOM) QUIZ - 6 Min.

Rowan smiled brightly and nodded, figuring it safe enough so he hugged the master. He made it quick, and pulled back after a moment. “Likewise, Master Nick.” He nodded. “Yeah, it’s Kara. And make sure she’s fed well. She doesn’t like cheese, but peanut butter she does. Creamy. She’s awfully picky for a mouse.”

He returned the hug, thinking nothing of it, just happy to have met another friendly face. “Creamy peanut butter. Got it. She is quite picky, but, I think I would be too.” Nick pet the little creature, happy to have a translator between them. He’d surely find Rowan again, if only to figure out what animals were saying or expressing. 

Arashi looked at the other male again, watching him for a moment as he chewed at his bottom lip. Nick seemed nice, and it had been very wrong of Arashi to have treated him the way he did when he had first come to the castle. Arashi was just bitter and upset about everything. Being trapped in a cell didn’t help. “I get irritated easily when I’m trapped in that cage,” he muttered lightly. He shook his head lightly, eyes catching sight of a little hole in the hall wall. “Maybe in this room,” he said as he moved to open the door to the small, seemingly abandon room. The furniture was covered up with white sheets and it was dark, but once the boy entered he could hear something scurrying about.

He made a very valid point and Nick almost felt terrible for getting so bent out of shape about their first encounter. Almost. “You know, as silly as it sounds, I sort of forget that giant detail. You know? That you’re...” Enslaved. He couldn’t bring himself to say the word aloud. Not yet at least. Distracting himself from the grim topic, Nick’s eyes followed Arashi’s to the small hole. His heart would have gave out if it were still beating at the hope that was given to him. “Maybe. I don’t know shit about dormice. Other than they’re sneaky and thieving.” Nick dropped, laying down on his back in the middle of the room, the way he met the creature in the first place. Maybe it’d entice her again? “Thank you for helping me look though. I appreciate it.” 

“Oh, wow. You’re a lot younger then most of the vampires here,” he said with a light smile as he looked back up at the male. “Me? I’m nineteen. Close though.” He looked under a few more things before standing up straight to stretch a bit. He bit his bottom lip lightly as he looked up at the other. “No…No I don’t..But my life is different here then it is for you.”

“Yeah, you look like it. I mean, young, you know.” That was the problem with guessing age. Unless you were dead on, there was a strong chance of offending someone. “True. I hadn’t really considered that. But in a twisted way, I feel trapped here too. But, maybe I can make life for you not so miserable while we’re both stuck, you know? Share the supposed benefits I have.” He stopped dead in his tracks to pick something up from underneath the small table. Not his pendant, but a coin. “What did you do before you came here? What was life like?”

Arashi glanced back at the male as they walked, noting his color, but he didn’t stop to ask about the vampire’s feeding schedule or habits. He wasn’t really in the mood to be food, not right now at least. When the man started walking ahead of him Arashi just assumed he knew where he was going and followed, slipping his hands out of his jacket pockets just long enough to rack his fingers through his pitch black hair. “Never said I hated you. Your kind perhaps, but not you in particular,” he muttered lightly as he looked up at the man. “Maybe I am maybe I’m not.” He smirked lightly. 

“Fair enough.” Even if he did get the impression Arashi hated him, he couldn’t argue the point that his kind was less than favorable, so much in fact that he didn’t want to be grouped in and paired up with any one of them. “Well, either way, it’s got you talking to me rather than calling me every name in the book. I’ll pretend you’re in a good mood. And I didn’t find jack shit, what about you? I’m ready to give up, to tell you the truth.”

Nightingale paused for a moment to watch as the male picked up a couple items to look at them, his blue eyes moving up to look at his face before falling back to each item he took hold of. “There are a lot of old things in the castle. I’m guessing many items were brought in with the masters staying here…I’m still pretty young..don’t know what it feels like to have lived that long.” He gave the vampire a soft smile before he too continued to work on finding the mouse with the stole pendant. “Do you not like it here?”

“I’m not that old either,” he said, defending himself. “I’m only like, what, thirty-seven?” There was a moment where he paused, using fingers to help count how old he was, deciding it was right, he moved on. “I mean, I know to you that’s probably old as fuck. You’re what, like, twenty? Twenty-one?” Looks could be a bitch, though. Since coming here, he’s seen people in their hundreds look to be about thirty. It was anyone’s guess. “Do I like it here? No. Actually, I don’t. I just don’t know where to go. Do you like it here?” 

Rowan smiled, liking that the man was able to laugh. “My master is really nice. Stefan. And there’s one named Nik that’s really nice too. Nolan is… weird and way into kinky shit, Gabriel is nice enough but a huge horndog, Isaac is cute but weird, Amett is scary, Davy is just adorable, and I can’t remember a lot of others.” He jumped when the other yelled, but he bit back snickers. “Yep. He’s terrified of spiders. Usually they’re just small ones that like to roam the castle, but every now and again, there’s a tarantula running around that I’ve made friends with.”

Nick took note of the names mentioned, but knew he’d forget right away. At least until he met them and something stood out--like Rowan and his ability to talk to unwanted creatures. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you. And I actually mean that. I’ll keep an eye out, and look forward to meeting your master.” Meeting anyone who wasn’t an absolute dick was a goal, of course. “I’ll get outta’ your hair and take, what was it, Kara? Back up to my room.”

“The what?” he replied with a confuse furrow of his brows

Originally posted by scribblenote

“Nothing. Doesn’t matter. Sorry to disturb you.”

“I’m always sitting quiet and alone. Company is good sometimes,” he muttered lightly as he moved about to the room once they were in it to search under a few tables and chairs and then behind the bookshelf. “I’ve been alright. Feeling a bit out of it, but other then that nothing to be to concerned with. How about you?”

“Out of it?” Nick did his best to search, but everything he picked up held such detail and craftsmanship, he was almost forced to look at it longer, study it closer and really take it in. Like the clock on the table, a book forgotten on the side, a framed photo--each unique in its own way. “This stuff is incredible. It must be the only good thing about living to be thousands of years old, right? You get to collect some pretty amazing trinkets.” Moment of A.D.D. over, Nick resumed searching for either the mouse or his pendant. “Me? I’ve been alright I guess. Considered taking off a few times, but, I realized I got nowhere to go. So.”

“A lion who lets little itty bitty mice rob him blind,” he muttered with a smile as he began walking, heading toward the stairs that lead out of the undercroft and into the castle above. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets as he moved forward, pausing only for a moment to look at the man. “Kitchen maybe…The garden. Not sure. This castles pretty damn old so I’m sure we can find mice everywhere. Yes. It was. And yours is Nick. Let’s get a move on it before that mouse hides it somewhere.”

He was taken away with the word ‘kitchen’, almost grunting from hunger pains alone, though he knew by now nothing in that kitchen would actually satisfy him in short of a blood bag--which ew, gross. “Well your ideas are better than mine.” Nick bounded off, headed in the direction he assumed to be the kitchen, relying solely on Arashi to tell him otherwise. “I was under the impression you hated me,” he said at last, turning to face him as they walked. “Hate me less? Or are you in a good mood?”

Rowan heard his inner struggle and he let out a soft sigh, folding his wings back into his tattoo. “You’ll only be a mindless eating machine if you don’t learn to control it. You’re only a monster if you let yourself become one. Keep holding back, and you’ll snap. You’ll hurt a lot of people if that snap happens and the Council might put you down. You can do animal blood. It’ll make it a lot easier on you.” He nodded though, and placed the fingertips of four fingers on the man’s wrist, going for a comforting gesture. “I just… I wanna help, you know? I can’t block it out easily when you think so loud, but alright. I’m sorry.” He nodded. “She likes cotton stuffing from… a stuffed animal. It’s fuzzy and warm. She’ll need warmth during winter. If you ever need help figuring her needs out, come find me? Stefan is my master, so I’m in his suite.”

He could appreciate the fact that someone wanted to help--legit help. It seemed easier to piss off the counsel and other vamps than making actual friends for the guy. He’d already made enemies with Lucien before getting situated all the way. “I get what you’re saying. I really do. But I don’t think I’m ready to accept this.” If nothing else, he was being honest. “Probably wont last here much longer anyway, you know? I can’t be what they expect me to be. What everyone expects.” If there was a rock by his foot, he’d kick it, just to set the tone for his obvious ‘blue’ mood. But in spite of it all, Nick still wanted to try. Even if it was futile at this point. “Cotton from a stuffed animal? Particular, isn’t she? I’ll get right on that. Stefan..Stefan.. I’ll have to meet him. Thank you, though, for everything.” 

“It’s really no trouble at all. I don’t have anything else to do, and helping you would be nice.” The man had let him out for a bit to walk around last time they had met. He gave the man a smile before slowly walking off to the common area where he’d seen plenty of mice running about and stealing things. He kept his eyes on the ground, searching for any sign of movement or glint of the object.

“Seriously. Only I can manage going from quiet, peaceful evening alone to nation-wide manhunt for a little ole’ mouse.” And all over a disfigured coin, too. But he would keep that to himself. “Given the circumstanced, being what they are and all, how have you been?” He asked, making small talk with Night as he idly looked.