Blood and Gold

“More than likely. I know a good multitude of undead who are still within feasible mortal lifespans,” he muses, “but, yes, again, I apologize for encroaching.” He’s not used to holding extended conversations, and it certainly shows. “It most definitely is a faux pas. Hah. My mistake.” Anton might be onto something with him being a predator himself, though, his eyes are just too sharp and unnatural, his teeth pointed like so many daggers, the way he studies Anton too analytical to simply be paying attention.

“I should spend more time among the mortals, I think. I didn’t gain my nobility until after…well, never mind that. I don’t need to be sharing my life story with a near-stranger. All I’ll tell you is that seventy years are a drop in the bucket for me. Well, maybe a handful in the bucket. I can’t recall. All I do remember is that when I was young, people dressed in far more ruffles.” He chuckles to himself, as though the thought of folks milling about in lace and cravats was humorous, now.

“A servant, you say? Interesting, for a mortal family to have a vampire butler. He must like the little things. He must like you.” Interestingly, he seems to direct that statement more toward himself than Anton, as though thinking aloud. “And he turned you. I’ll have to have words with him at some point. Soon. He fascinates me.”

“Knowing how to act around humans is definitely useful. The more ‘other’ you seem to them, the more suspicious they get, and while ‘supernatural creature’ might not be the first thing their minds reach for, ‘not safe’ definitely will be.” He spoke from personal experience, slowly losing the trust of the townsfolk back home in Folsense until they’d realized what he was, and tried to kill him for it.

He still wondered how Nigel had escaped, but then... the man probably hadn’t lived as long as he presumably had by being easily found out. Really it was a wonder the man didn’t try to correct his master’s behavior.

“Ruffles? My memory may be missing a good few years, but I know that no-one has dressed with ruffles for a very long time. Perhaps you are as old as you claim. Or are trying to justify a terrible fashion sense.” Anton added on, his tone something close to casual and joking, but internally still on-edge about who - or more importantly what - he’d just given an invitation to his home.

“Every few days? My, you are young. So high-energy.” He’s ponderous, still with that smile. He’s trying to not be threatening, but it’s difficult when it’s in his nature to be. “This Nigel…perhaps I should speak to him. He seems to be well about his wits, but, no, I can’t blame you for staying in your comfort zone. You’ll find a better pacing with time.”

This hunger demon, though, perhaps that’s why Anton is so…the way he is. Every few days with the feeding, a smell lingering on him that whet the Krsnik’s appetite with a new edge that he hasn’t felt in a while. Not to mention this vampire has a beating heart. That’s new. A beating heart, lively eyes…he is the perfect mix of alive and undead. “Ah, the perfect partnership, if a tad clumsy and sedentary.” 

Thankfully, he pulls back, having gotten the closer look he wanted, even with Anton backing away. “Sorry,” he starts, genuinely apologetic, “I don’t mean to frighten you. I’m something of a monster in the closet, you see. I don’t stray from my manor all too often; my social skills have suffered for it. Do pardon me, I’m simply curious about you, and I occasionally fail to recognize that unfamiliar people may not care for my encroachment.

“But, how I had you was a simple, young vampire. The whiff that lingers on you stirs something in myself that leads me to believe that you are more than what I can glean. I’d like to get to know you a bit better, young Duke. I will take you up on your invitation in the near future. Perhaps speak to this “Nigel” fellow you keep carrying on about.”

“I won’t deny that age probably does have something to do with it.” Anton chuckled, immediately relieved once the other backed away - shifting forwards again now that the Count wasn’t so uncomfortably close. “Seventy-plus may be old for a human, but I’m well aware that it’s nothing for a creature that doesn’t age nor die from.” Well, maybe once one got old enough, but as far as he could tell, a vampire had to be extraordinarily long-lived for age to become a factor in their worries at all.

Yet more things he’d need to ask Nigel about. Did Nigel view him as a child, Anton wondered? How embarrassing.

“I don’t know how the social structure of fae-folk and other supernatural races work, but I can assume that closing in on a person’s space like that is generally considered a faux-pas.” He responded kindly - trying not to make himself sound as irritated as he felt about the intrusion. Anton did make a note of it, however. Most people didn’t close in on a predator like that unless they were one themselves - which made him wonder if perhaps his invitation had been unwise.

“I can understand that, though - while not as bad as what you’ve implied, I’ve had to learn how to act... how to word it... Like one of the common humans. Not a noble turned into a vampire - not that I remember being a noble too much.” There was a great stretch of fuzz over his mind that he didn’t bother trying to push at. Not like old memories would help him much in the here and now.

“Oh? Well, Nigel would know more than I do. From what few memories I have, he acted as a servant for my family, and several different families before that.” He still found it odd that despite how Nigel was the older, and therefor likely superior vampire - he still preferred Anton act the master. Perhaps he’d always been a servant and simply felt more comfortable with that role?

Jonovan gains a wicked, but well-intended smile as Anton dances around the veritable, if sparse, minefield that is his personality. “You aren’t completely in the wrong for being afraid, young one,” he hums rather cryptically, his lip drawing back in a more toothy smile than the others. His mouth is lined with bright, sharp teeth, and as friendly as the gesture is, something about it is inherently spine-tingling. 

“It’s fine to not trust me. You don’t know me,” he assures, still smiling slightly, “And I barely know you. I could know you, if you’d allow me…” He outstretches one hand, pale with thin skin, fingers tipped with those long, black talons, palm up. Paired with his gentle smirk, it’s not the most trustworthy of gestures, but it’s clear that he’s trying not to impose.

He then, after a few moments, draws his claws back to listen, leaning in. “Oh, naturally. I follow the same logic. Of course, you probably have to feed more often than a few times a month.” 

Anton mentions a demon, and the degree to which Jonovan is invading his space quickly becomes a slight bit overbearing. “A hunger demon? Mmm, that explains it…” He doesn’t dare elaborate, his already-small pupils cutting that slight bit tighter for a moment. “Intriguing. I may have pegged you wrong at first.”

Well, if the man meant to calm him with those words and that manner of response, it in fact did the opposite. Anton was already beginning to regret his invitation, but saw no way to rescind it without potentially angering his strangely intimidating company.

He’d have to think of something later.

“I prefer to know people through words first, before anything else. But thank you for the offer. That said - no. I don’t know you, not at all. Not even your scent - though Nigel might. He’s older than I am, though I know not how much.” Enough that he’d been serving the family for a long time, judging by paintings and photos he’d found. Nigel himself had implied work with multiple families, so a good few hundred years sounded accurate.

“Every few days, at minimum. My desire to keep the public’s panic down, aside; I prefer it that way anyway - having been human once before, it’s hard not to try and keep to that same schedule.” He even had yet to break the habit of eating regular food, even though he didn’t need to. “Can you blame me for sticking to a schedule I’m already comfortable with~?” Nigel didn’t seem to care.

Perhaps it was something that changed with age?

“He would hunt regularly - I would drink the blood of his kills, and he would then eat the body.” Anton continued, eyes narrowing once again at the Count’s sudden closeness. He couldn’t help but lean away, wildly uncomfortable with the invasion of his space. “It was something of a symbiotic partnership. I wouldn’t say it’s harder without him, but it’s certain become quieter.” Mostly in good ways. Good lord but Clive and his girlfriend had been... loud.

Ah, he’s wising up. Almost a shame. Jonovan watches in amusement as Anton reins in his temper, his thin, dry smile never quite leaving his face. It’s always entertaining to watch the younglings realize their mistakes far before the point of danger and rectifying their attitudes in kind. 

“So you’ve said. Marking one’s territory is typically a good way to keep others out of it. Of course, I find myself in the interesting position of those of your ilk typically giving me a rather generous berth. I wonder if it’s my own scent…?” he ponders, his long, ebony claws coming up to rakes through locks that are just as black, his pale skin and irises stark against all of the darkness in his appearance. 

Indeed, his aura is a tad repellent, and while he doesn’t have an overpowering stink about him, he feels almost oppressively like a predator. Good manners and refined speech aside, something about him simply isn’t right. 

“I don’t find myself hunting the living all that often,” he muses, that same, slight smile coming back, “Mostly because I don’t need to feed all that often.” On much stronger vampires’ blood, he could go quite some time comfortably without feeding. The problem was that vampires were wilier prey, as evidenced by this one catching on to the danger the Count presented.

“I have a home, but I thank you. If I ever need sanctuary, I’ll know where to go.”

“If may be so bold-” Anton began, quietly hoping the other didn’t take it as an insult “-your scent may indeed play a part. I’ll admit that I don’t recognize it, but it’s unpleasant, and it screams danger. Perhaps it’s just because I’m ‘young’ by most standards, but whatever you are, your scent makes me hard-pressed to trust you in any capacity.” Honestly Anton found himself relieved that the Count didn’t take the invitation.

While he was sure Nigel could fend for himself, Anton didn’t want to invite potential danger right into his home.

He’d have to ask Nigel about this fellow later, describe the smell and see if the older vampire knew anything - with luck, he was just reacting poorly to a scent he’d never encountered before.

“I hunt quite frequently - though not for a lack of skill. I try not to kill anyone, if I can manage it - the less deaths there are in the area, the less suspicion I raise in the populace.” Meaning he could stay here longer. And if suspicion was raised, he could hunt animals for a while. They were unpleasant and not exactly filling, but they curbed the need to feed. He’d never say it aloud, though. Probably it would get him a negative reaction.

Listening to Anton in what one can describe as nonplussed earnest, his thin brow jumps slightly as he mentions thralls, his lips tugging a bit at the corner to give another vaguely entertained smirk. “This is true,” he purrs, his soft, whispered words somehow rolling low, like the gentle scrape of the hem of a dress over flooring. 

And it would appear that he’d angered this young vampire. Their tempers were always so wild and hot! Touting themselves as the apex predators to apex predators, not realizing that they themselves had predators.

Things like him. Things like the Dread Count. Things like the Krsnik.

“I take no offense to that remark. It’s factual, and spoken from a place of ignorance. You’re very young by my standards, and I use it as a term of endearment, rather than to be minimalizing or offensive. I do apologize.” At the remark that he’s in Anton’s territory, the Count seems surprised, and his eyes widen, dark, hollow-looking sclera around platinum-silver irises, shot through with jet-black veins. “Ah, I’m intruding? Your abscence has left its mark, Anton. I didn’t smell your paths and thought this area unperturbed.” 

Oh, this simply wouldn’t do. This young vampire doesn’t trust him at all, which isn’t something he blames him for, but, well…perhaps his overbearing presence as nightmare of nightmares isn’t doing him any favors. 

“Sought you out…? Curiosity.” Hunger. Wasn’t going to let that one slip. “I got a whiff of a new presence, and went out to investigate.” He almost hopes this vampire will keep being disrespectful, just so he has an excuse to eat him, but he’s giving this one the benefit of the doubt for now.

“I’m aware I’m ‘young’, but I’m hardly a child.” Just because he was a comparatively young vampire didn’t mean he was a child - he was an adult that happened to not have been a vampire for very long. If Anton didn’t feel such a strong sense of danger from this man he’d tell him off if not outright attack him.

But there was something about the way this man held himself - and not just his implication of royalty - that made Anton... unsettled.

“As I’ve said-” Anton began, pulling himself in and trying to calm down - anger would not help him. Anger rarely helped. “I’ve not been out much in the last two years, so any scents I may have tracked across the city before would have faded. I mean to have at least a slightly more active presence here than before, if only to mark my presence here to any... similar, folk. It wouldn’t be wise to have too many supernatural folk in one area.” Humans would get suspicious. Besides; Anton truly did take great pains to make sure he didn’t cause panic - he’d have to move, then, and he liked where he was living.

It’d be too hard to find another place quite as perfect.

The suspicious squinting is not lost on him, but for the sake of brevity, he elects to ignore it. Being found out is the least of his concerns, and as such, he only offers Anton a curt smile at the thinly veiled display of status that was his declaration of Dukedom.

“Practice?” he murmurs, his tone now curious as well as affable, “How droll. I can see your reasoning, however.”

Is he new? He supposes so. “Why not both? Ah, but if I’m being honest, I took up the mantle of Count to humor the living and play along with their games. Technically speaking, a better title for me would be Your Majesty, but it’s ever so clumsy, more so than simply being a Count or an Earl. Don’t think I didn’t catch that little flaunt, child. You have quite a lot of courage, trying to get one over on me…~”

“It’s been over two years since I’ve properly tested myself - no matter how good one is at something, if they don’t do said thing for so long, they become rusty. Thralls, useful as they are, don’t exactly aid in making sure one stays fit.” He’d mostly used his ‘staff’ - in other words, his thralls - to keep himself in blood, mostly because he’d gotten too... Anton supposed melancholy worked, to hunt properly.

Nigel probably wasn’t going to let him back inside until he had a proper hunt for once. He didn’t blame the man.

...Oh. Damn it - an aesthetic title - Anton huffed, his suspicious look changing to one that was a proper glare - again with the child. This ‘count’ didn’t have to flaunt his age so proudly.

The smile on the man’s face, one soft and amused, sneaks into being. He smells like one of the undead, to be sure, adjacent to a vampire, but not quite the same. “Can you really fall out of shape if you’re not alive, little one? Well, not in the traditional sense, anyway.” He laughs, and it’s just as soft and wispy as his speech, a flutter of hushed chuckling. 

“The night of the thinning of the veil has passed, but that’s not to say you can’t still go for a good nighttime stroll. I do from time to time. But, I’m being rude. I haven’t introduced myself. I am Count Gyver. Who might you be, child?”

Anton squints at the stranger suspiciously - he doesn’t like this man and he most definitely doesn’t like his smell. It puts him off and makes him want to retreat back home - and he probably would have, if he wasn’t distantly worried he’d be tracked. 

“Perhaps, but even so - if I don’t practice now and again, I become less efficient. And falling out of practice can mean death. Besides, I prefer to take my nighttime strolls on less heavily populated nights anyway ” He danced around exacts, specifics. Clearly the stranger wasn’t human, and clearly he knew Anton wasn’t either, but Anton would sooner let himself be staked than to just give away what he was to some creature he wasn’t familiar with. Who knew how the other would have used it...?

“Perhaps, then…I should make things interesting, child.” 

Which a voice like the rustle of the wind through the rushes certainly might. His tone is barely above a whisper, his accent nigh-indiscernible through his hushed deliberations. “Do you crave activity, or excitement?”

An odd scent. Strange, unfamiliar, and above all - not human. Frustratingly, past that Anton couldn’t tell what it was he was encountering. He hated not knowing these things.

“I think, for now, I just want activity. I’ve been... whats a word... very quiet, for a while now. I don’t want to begin something that I don’t know if I’m in shape for. Nigel wouldn’t let me hear the end of it, if I did.” Child? Certainly, Anton imagined 70-something wasn’t terribly old for a vampire, but to go so far as to call him a child? How rude.

((Did you know I actually forgot this blog existed? And when I remembered it I couldn’t recall the email it was attached to? Thankfully I’ve a list of all my rp-blog emails so I just kind of went down the list until I found it, lol

good god

“ It indeed is. Sadly, not much souls have dwelled around which is unfortunate… ”

[He couldn’t help but stare for a moment before speaking - he’d never met himself before.]