❝  i see a dozen men here ready to leap on each other’s throats.  ❞ — for eglee // @thinwhitethesp

the shadows had become something of a comfort for eglee over the years— not something to hide in, but instead, something to make her own. there had once been a time when she had felt her shine dim, disappear almost entirely. a time when she would have perhaps admitted defeat and claimed the shadows were a place of hiding. but how soon that changed.

unchained by the theatre, by the twisted politics that made it up, eglee had found herself in ways she never could have imagined. and it meant that the vampire that inhabited the shadows now, the one who watched and learned, was a far cry from the one that had escaped the fires all those decades ago.

lips lift into a sharp grin and she has to wonder— does he speak because he knows who is there, or is it simply to hear the sound of his own voice? certainly, he must sense the vampiric presence, but does he know who?

finally, eglee steps forth and looks down from the balcony, to the crowds below. eager, ready to hear the sounds, the music of their cult leader. different century, same bullshit. but at least lestat had a sprinkling of talent, she supposed.

at times he wonders if the reason he hasn't got an agent profile in the talamasca databank might be that they're frankly not sure if they want to admit him to their weird club after all. of course, he's also currently on a top secret matryoshka doll of an undercover operation, one that only the new york branch knows about - but with his track record so far, hell, if he was in helen's place he'd have booted the new recruit about four catastrophic mistakes ago, maybe wiped him clean off the earth altogether.

then he recalls his last conversation with helen, conveniently located in the creepiest deserted gymnasium she was able to find on short notice apparently, and it all falls into place. he's bait, that's his talent. the telepathy, that's just a neat little extra, an additional thing for them to take advantage of - but his real talent lays in honeytrapping creatures from the underworld. therefore it's no wonder burton seemed so eager to convince him to get away from helen's fucked up psychic detective order while he still could, why jasper had let him into the moterhouse after the frankly subpar acting performance guy had delivered.

❛ your face shows you unwell. ❜ — @thinwhitethesp

so - he's catnip to the supernatural, apparently, or at least semi-successful at luring them out. unfortunately, however, this doesn't make up for the fact that he's just a shit spy. too curious for his own good, sure, he's got the spirit, but also the stealth of ... the elephant in the china shop seems too easy, too predictable of a metaphor. just as predictable, and as laughably, pathetically easy, he's yet again allowed a vampire to turn the chase around on him, corner him somewhere away from the crowds, a dead end. man, he's really got to get his shit together - if the talamasca had been gracious enough to allow him another week of basic training, some aid to handle his telepathy, maybe he'd be better prepared for this sort of thing. and less likely to abandon assigned missions because someone tricks his psychic radar off. oh well - would've, could've, should've, and all that.

there's a heavy, labored exhale before guy turns around. his hood slips onto his shoulders as he shakes his head softly to himself, mimes a humorless huff. " man, you people sure are... theatrical. " 'flamboyant' had come to mind, too, or even 'dramatic'. but really, the more he thinks about this, it seems more like the plot of a big, extravagant theatrical production rather than a movie or novel. " i mean, my face - what about my face ? you want me to step into the light or something ? " get a good look at his prey before he inevitably pounces and guy's left behind in some dark alley, drained and heaving ? he really ought to be more afraid of that particular outcome, but guy cant help but be curious nonetheless, allowing his interest to take over whatever fear might be brewing beneath the surface.

Madeleine wasn't a big coffee person.. but desperate times called for desperate measures. She had a hard time sleeping last night. She wasn't too sure as to why, but she supposed it probably had something to do with the people outside of her shop. They'd become increasingly frequent in recent weeks, and they'd been growing bolder with it all, too.

Still, the run rose and with it so did she. She had a cup in the morning when she first crawled out of bed, cringing at the taste of it as it moved over her tongue and down her throat. Her second followed after.. and her third. She can't remember how many cups she drank just to keep her eyes open through the night, working on a new dress to display in her shops window.

The stars were out now, and she stood outside of her shop, staring up at them. She took a sip of the coffee in her hands, still warm from when she'd gotten it a few minutes before. She still found herself exhausted, but she kept her eyes open regardless.

Claudia found solace in her journal. From the first few days of her new life as a vampire, she found peace in writing in those pages. She'd lost count of how many journals she'd written in by now, all the pages from front to back covered in her story. She didn't want to spare any detail. She didn't know what she'd do with them, either. Sometimes she would go back and read the older ones— the ones from New Orleans— and wonder where everything went wrong.

She sat backstage, listening as Armand directed the actors onstage from his seat in the audience. She scribbled in her journal, chewing at her lip. Today was good. It felt good to have a coven. A coven without Lestat. But no one could know about what she did to him.

New plays were.. less exciting now, for Armand. He'd been serving as the theater director for centuries now, and his troupe had performed nearly every show created by human minds. So many that the members of his coven had begun writing their own originals. Sam had become particularly fond of scriptwriting, and so he would bring him his drafts every now and then in hopes of it becoming a regular show.

The creative process was long and exhausting, but he had to make it look and feel real for a mortal audience. They could never know the truth of the theater, and the details he put in place made sure it would never happen. Though his actors were a bit rough around the edges sometimes, it was nothing he couldn't handle. He told himself that again as he called Santiago to his office.