La Dame Sanglante • Matriarch of Sept‑Tours • Widow

And once again, Armand couldn’t hold back his burst of laughter. He liked the way she was thinking about art and how she was approaching the matter. But even more, he was amused by how she was talking about Marius and his vision. Amadeo had never been a cherub, not in the sense of how Marius wanted him to be, but he used to grow tired of the discussion and just let him think whatever he wanted.

❝I was never the cherub he wanted me to be, not even in my mortal years. Maybe my face looked innocent, but I was never. The pureness of the Renaissance was a concept I could respect. I could see the appeal. However, I can see why you hold negative feelings. Being reminded of a period of loneliness does not make an era appealing.❞ Armand mused without moving a muscle in his body. ❝There are a few things I regret. Missing the baroque is one of those things. I experienced nothing of that time period. I saw the changes whenever I left the underground hiding place beneath a cemetery in Paris. But there were only two occasions for a Coven Master to leave: to feed or to hunt down another vampire. Either because they ran away from the Coven, or because they entered the Coven’s territory. I did not witness Versailles, another thing I deeply regret. I would have loved to see it in it’s prime. I would have loved to attend one of those lavish parties.❞ He made a soft humming sound while he was dwelling in his thoughts. ❝I visited the gardens of Versailles once. Maybe two decades ago. Nice, but I assume not as impressive as it used to be back then.❞  

Perhaps, he was rambling a little too much. Armand couldn’t turn back time. He had to live with the fact that he missed important pieces of history because of Santino and the satanic coven. But could he really blame them when he simply never rebelled? He fell silent again so he could listen to her, and he could relate to the conflict. Enduring was a word he knew too well. ❝You made it your strength then. The most dangerous of us are those who radiate peace and comfort. Many men back in the day did not realize that it wasn’t them making decisions but their wives. The powerful women of history were forgotten because they left the spotlight to their husbands. I did not rule alone either. My first coven was led by me on the outside, but it was Allesandra who had been the closest to me. Her advice and her strength held the coven together. Not me.❞ He could admit that now without putting himself down. 

❝My favourite flower is the Magnolia. I used to grow a magnolia tree with pink petals.❞ Was this odd? He didn’t know. Most of the time, Armand had no clue what people expected from him when they laid their eyes on him. A soft smirk appeared on his lips. Yes, he always used to be much harsher on Marius’ works, but maybe he just wanted his Master to do better, like Marius always wanted Amadeo to do better.

Slowly, he turned his head a bit to the side, just enough that he could observe Ysabeau as she spoke. But instead of judging her, a smile formed on his lips. It was a soft and almost fond little smile. ❝We should agree on not apologizing for our honesty anymore. You do not speak ill of your son. I can hear the worry of a mother in your words. Is that really something to apologize for? Isn’t it natural not to like a potential daughter-in-law at first? Love makes us stupid. Sometimes, I feel like our kind is much more prone to that than a mortal. Most of us love with every fiber of our hearts. And keeping in mind that he is your son, I assume that Matthew is a man of strong will and passion. It is not my place to give advice, so I don’t. I just hope for you and for him that he doesn’t have to choose between the family and his loved one one day.❞ Armand turned his head back in the original position and closed his eyes. Armand remained still until she allowed him to take a break. He carefully put the grapes away in the bowl again and got up from his position. He slipped his right arm into the sleeve and pulled everything tight so Ysabeau wouldn’t feel awkward around him. Curious about how the painting looked so far, he walked around to glance over her shoulder.

❝Oh…❞ he whispered and tilted his head to the side. ❝That’s me?❞ obviously. A lump formed in his throat even though it was just his outlines. But he could envision it much better now. And something about this painting was already doing something to him. ❝You are going to make me emotional. I didn’t think that my appearance could fit in such a scenario. I never doubted your talent, by the way. Now…anyway…please scandalize me with your works.❞

She painted and listened to every little tidbit of information Armand felt comfortable divulging as with creatures such as them there was no such thing as casual conversation, much like she knew he was assesing and studying her she was doing the same. Or she at least assumed that he was picking up the little pieces she offered as to create the mosaic that was Ysabeau, to maybe understand each other a little more. "Perhaps the Renesance reminded me I was never allowed to be delightful and innocent. Nemesis was a demanding Goddess, the temple accolytes cruel and I simply needed an excuse to be bitter. It is my prerogative to stew in my own bile every now and again. But I will revisit her masterworks once more with the new perspective. Maybe I will play a game, try to guess which ones you inspired just to make museum visits more interesting and really bother to look at the brush strokes of the Old Greats"

"I will cheat of course. You presented an era and I can make educated guesses on who viably has met you in a short timeframe" Ysabeau's eyes were alight with mischief something that did not light up her marble cold face. "Magnolias it will be. Endurance, eternity and long life, purity, perfection or in Chinese tradition the flower of the Yin, the feminine side of life. The flower of dignity and nobility. There is a lot to work with. Perhaps I will paint you in the a feminine stance, soft in face and delicate swoops of light caressing your form as if the moon herself kisses your skin to bless you with her light." The moon another symbol of endurance and eternity. "I will mull over some ideas-" Yes, she'd quite like to gift him a painting eventually as thanks for his time. Too easy to just paint him in a garden of magnolias, no, she wanted a twist. How is he a magnolia flower-

She finished his body and the paint would have to be allowed to dry before she worked on his face, the outline of his face already in pencil to guide her brushstrokes later. "Art evokes feelings you need not feel apologetic for it. You are being peeled back and reforged into something you never have been on canvas before-" Ysabeau put her hand on his forearm and squeezed. "Yes, come. I will show you some of my works." She would give him a tour of some of her paintings after Marthe brought him a pair of slippers, a fair few shipwrecks that seemed to be her favourite subject, a painting of a naked blond man in a meadow although it was more landscape of the fields of Elysium and the naked blond man stomach down on the field was having a snooze with his bum cheeks in the sun was more form than detail.

Landscapes of meadows, of lakes, deep blues and dark greens. Many of her figures were nude with their bum on show including Aquarius, a woman's back and bum as she poured water out of her large jug and splashed water to surround the fame of the painting, Libra was holding a scale with a glass of wine on one side and a scroll on the other but she was right Aquarius was much better painted. "As I said I am very low brow." And yet all of them seemed to be painted in joy. Aquarius washing the painting, Achilles or perhaps it was Philippe painted as Achilles snoozing in the perfect spring sun, the seven muses running to Apollo to be clothed in his sun, so it seemed she enjoyed painting dark skies full of stars, still lakes under moonlight, devastating shipwrecks and serene people with firm buns.

"I will put you over there... and replace Libra with the muses of Apollo. They were my knitting circle, the ladies that modelled as the muses. Aquarius was my gardener's wife. I mostly thought how we go from liberated to puritan, how bodies are so taboo. Women specifically so often criticised for too much breast, too little. Too tall, too short. What is the body if but the temple to house our spirit and why must be so scandalised by a bum or a breast. Lumps of fat- then again I never was gifted with the curves of Venus." She was very tall and never much had the physique of a beanpole.

(dusty roads · warm bottles · low porch lights · confessions sweeter than the drink)

OUT ON THE BACKROADS - HEADLIGHTS & GRAVEL

• “Get in—road’s quiet tonight, might as well enjoy it.” • “Careful, the gravel’s loose. Don’t want you falling before the night even starts.” • “You ever just drive until the world disappears? …Want to?” • “Sit closer. Truck rides better when we’re not pretending there’s space between us.” • “It’s just you, me, and a long road. Got anything you’ve been wanting to say?” • “Lean out the window if you want—wind feels good tonight.” • “Turn the music up. Loud enough to drown the week out.” • “I don’t get nights like this often. Glad you’re the one I’m sharing it with.”

BONFIRE GLOW - SPARKS & SMOKE

• “Fire’s warm—come sit. I saved you a spot.” • “Hold your beer tight. Last time someone knocked it into the fire.” • “Don’t lean back too far, you’ll end up smelling like charcoal.” • “Every time the flames light your face… damn. You look different.” • “Give me your hands. Cold nights require shared heat.” • “Tell me a secret—you’ve got the firelight look. Makes people honest.” • “Watch the sparks. They always remind me how fast things burn.” • “Stay close. Coyotes sound louder when you’re alone.”

NEON BARLIGHTS - MUSIC LOW, GLANCES HIGH

• “You want another beer or are you already past your limit?” • “Dance with me—don’t worry, no one’s sober enough to judge.” • “Scoot over. Bar stools aren’t meant to be polite.” • “You keep looking at me like that. Want to tell me why?” • “If you spill that on me, you’re buying the next three rounds.” • “This song’s good. Perfect for leaning in closer.” • “Stay till close with me? I’m not ready to go home.” • “If you’re gonna flirt, you better commit to it.”

TAILGATE NIGHTS - STARS OVERHEAD

• “Hop up—tailgate’s sturdy enough for both of us.” • “Careful, it’s cold metal. Here—sit closer, I’ll warm you up.” • “Look up. Stars don’t shine like this when you’re sober or inside.” • “If you lie down, you’ll see the sky right. Trust me.” • “You keep brushing against me… intentional?” • “I brought an extra beer if you want it. Not sharing mine.” • “Tell me what you’re thinking. Nights like this make people brave.” • “If you fall asleep on my shoulder, I won’t complain.”

DRUNKEN LAUGHTER - STUMBLING INTO SOMETHING MORE

• “Okay—okay, stop, you’re making me laugh too hard. I’m gonna spill this.” • “If I’m leaning on you, it’s because you’re stable. Don’t get cocky.” • “I swear, you get cuter the more I drink.” • “Hey—hold my beer. I’m about to do something stupid.” • “Walk me straight. Or at least try.” • “Sit with me. The ground’s spinning less when you’re nearby.” • “If I say something embarrassing, pretend you didn’t hear it.” • “You’re warm. Don’t move yet.”

QUIET MOMENTS - TRUTH BETWEEN SIPS

• “It’s funny… beer loosens my tongue, but you’re the one who makes me honest.” • “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.” • “Why do you keep looking at my mouth?” • “Come here—stop hiding behind that bottle.” • “Ever think we’d end up here? Like this?” • “You want the last drink? I’ll share if you sit closer.” • “Hold still—there’s something in your hair.” • “I like this. You. The night. All of it.”

THE NIGHT WINDS DOWN - BUT NOT THE FEELING

• “Don’t go yet. Stay till the last bit of the fire burns out.” • “If you’re cold, use me. I won’t bite.” • “Want a ride home? Or… want to keep driving with no destination?” • “I’ll walk you inside. Just in case.” • “You can finish that beer on my porch. No hurry.” • “Promise me we’ll do this again. Same time. Same way.” • “If I kiss you… would the night forgive me?” • “I don’t want this to end. Not yet.”

He laughed at the lack of direct translation in their shared mother tongue, amused as he listened to her story intently. She was a wealth of knowledge and experience and where usually, he found himself bored by the reminiscing of the ancient, her anecdotes were interesting and one might argue, fun. If she wanted to speak, he would listen. While impulsive and defiant in the face of some tradition, he did hold reverence for a few. His mother. Akasha. Marius, sometimes. And now Ysabeau. Some people, often self important, spoke just to hear the sound of their own voices, with very little substance to their words at all. Ysabeau was neither.

"I'm not sure they even know what the songs are about. If they understand what I'm saying. I don't know if they can. The beauty of music is that it can be about anything, no? So it's enough, even if it's shallow. For the mortals. I hear the others, though. When I speak of the loneliness. They're out there, listening. The songs touch them. Surely you've felt if. Perhaps not in my music, but out there in the world. You have seen so much. Do you ever fear the emptiness of eternity? Does it get easier?" Perhaps she could tell him it did. That one day that longing for connection and meaning would be fulfilled and he would no longer want and need with such ravenous desire.

But he didn't expect she would, and as she took his hand, he followed at her side out of the exhibit. The smell of the blooming flower had already become barely noticable, though there was a freshness as they exited. Down they went, beneath the ground he thought, into a dimly lit room. He sat when she did, gaze trained as his eyes easily adjusted to the lighting. The flower was peculiar, and not what he had been expecting of an orchid. "It's beautiful. Such a flower belongs in the savage garden. It survives as it must, without apology."

A pause, and he looked back to her, smiling a bit. "Have you always liked flowers?" Were there flowers she had loved once that no longer existed? To be as old as she was and see such things pass out of the world until only a few survived to remember, it was bittersweet. Were vampires not one of the ultimate parasites? Feeding off others in order to survive, taking life to sustain it? And what did the vampire give in return? Well, that remained to be seen. He could have spent hours looking at different blossoms, hearing her explain the processes and revealing their secrets, but he wanted to speak with her about something else.

"I wanted to talk to you, about something my mother said. It might be nothing. I don't know how involved you've been in keeping track of...well. We can speak here, among the flowers, if you prefer."

"Do I feel the emptiness of eternity." Ysabeau repeated his words in her otherworldly and ethereal voice that made quite a few wonder if the unseen world just beyond the veil spoke through her. She reached to hold his hand, to comfort him in a way or tether him before hearing bad news. "Yes. I have always felt the emptiness of eternity. I fell in love with a man with visions of a vampiric dynasty, dominion over all. A man that loved War, Women and Wine in that order. Someone would always oppose him and off he was...My Matthew is the only thing I have for myself. I lost four children a grandchild and a husband who were all supposed to be with me for eternity. So yes, this century has felt very empty. Rooms that used to be filled with argument and opinion fell silent-" she let go of his hand. "If you find a way to make it more bearable please share it with me? Today....tomorrow...a century from now"

She at least had her son.

"I am supposed to tell you it gets better, correct? But I don't coddle. You will wake up one day and you will see nothing of the world you once new. She's called France now. The very city you grew up will have nothing you recognise. The stars moved, new countries, new suns, new planets and more and more emptiness. But there is real beauty left in the world. Art,and music...and the most intriguing innovations." There, some positivity in the despair.

"I was alive at a time where plants made the difference between healing and not healing. I have always loved flowers for different reasons.I have been a herbalist, a priestess, a wife, a wife to vampire, a wife to another vampire, a mother, a steward...flowers never stopped being relevant. White Hellebore is my favourite. It blooms in winter when the world is cold and quiet" Exactly like her emotional climate. Poisonous, delicate and pure. Associated with grief, protection and warding off evil. "What about you?Carnations….or black calla lillies…? Am I even close?" she queried and then his next question came.

Armand nodded a little bit. ❝It does make sense.❞ And with that, he tilted his head back more, arched his back even more until his position looked almost eerily unnatural, something a mortal could only hold for a few seconds before they would cry out in pain. He twisted the wrist of the hand that held the grapes even more until it looked like an unseen force had yanked it into this position. Dionysus was a god after all so why should he bend to mortal restrictions while indulging in pleasures of wine? ❝The Old Greats I got to meet were very stern in their visions. And when it means you end up bleeding by the end of it, you bleed – for the arts.❞ Amusement lingered in his voice even though it had been a real issue back in the day. There had been times when young mortal Amadeo, not even sixteen years old, cried at his master’s shoulder from being in such pain. Or him losing control over his legs, which led him to nasty falls. No matter how much time has passed, some memories will still be very much alive. 

There was a tingle where his heart was which spread down to his stomach. It was a feeling he hasn’t been allowed to feel in a long time and he was not even sure if that came from the mere fact that this gorgeous woman looked at him more intensely than he thought. Utterly interested, he fell into silence as he listened to her, but the mention of those perky bum cheeks made him laugh out loud, a rare thing to hear but it highly amused him. ❝Will you show it to me later? You intrigued me.❞

But this was not the only thing that interested him. Armand was a skilled listener at this point, something Amadeo lacked in his mortal days. The young boy really liked talking about this and that, but Armand was the master of silence and asking questions just at the right time. Like that, you get to know the other person better than anything. Most people found it easier and more comfortable to talk to a silent person. And he certainly knew what she meant. His time had probably been centuries later, but even during that time, there was little prospect for women. ❝May I ask,❞ he started thoughtfully. ❝How do you endure that as a woman? To be underestimated by society? Not having a say while you know better than men.❞

Of course, he wanted to see the composition of his skin tone, so Armand eagerly answered with a ❝yes please❞ and turned his head to look at the colours she used. And there it was again. This little flutter in his chest. To some it must sound foolish, but seeing Ysabeau trying to get the tone correct and putting so much thought into it caused a lump to form in his throat. Get it together, Armand, he told himself and brought his chin up. He couldn’t end up weeping over something like the right shade of colour for his skin tone. ❝There is one particular work I really adore. The painting is lost, probably destroyed by now. It was made by an unknown artist from Florence who never made a name for himself. But a man called Giovanni Dupré must have seen it. He made a sculpture called The Death of Abel, made in 1853. A French artist made his own version in 1866, a sculpture in marble called Abel Mort. The original work did not represent Abel; that’s something these two came up with. The pose I did there and the general painting was an homage to the Iliad. I was posing for the dead Patroclus whom Achilles couldn’t let go and whose dead body remained by Achilles’ side as he couldn’t bring himself to bury his Patroclus.❞ Armand hummed a little bit and shook his head just so slightly. ❝I was very passionate about that one and very upset that the painting is lost forever. I’m sorry, I am rambling.❞  

Of course, he liked her vision of painting some of his hair as if it dipped in wine. And once again, he felt delighted being in the presence of someone who had such creativity. He broke his position and walked around to have a look at the background she drew. He hummed a little bit, chuckling when she used such a modern word.

❝I like it. I think I like Baroque more than Renaissance. Also very smart to use a different kind of paint for the background. I can see in your strokes that you paint with emotion and not with technique. I’m not saying there is no technique but…Marius…❞ He knew that his name might spark her displeasure but it had to be said. ❝…Was only a mediocre artist, and I– Amadeo— used to critique his works a lot. He did not put any emotion in his paintings. Have you seen his murals?❞ He closed his eyes when she asked him to, held still until she gestured him to sit again. Armand got back into the unnatural pose he took before.

❝I appreciate that you put so much care in the tone of my skin. Thank you. This sounds emotional now, I know. How is your son doing? Your Matthew, I mean.❞  

"Well, the Old Greats painted for churches, for patrons, for royal courts. Their art was not for them, I am afforded the luxury of not requiring to please anyone and merely my friends' stern judgement if I paint something silly" Ysabeau understood why the artists he modelled for and sacrificed so much for demanded such pain and suffering, their art had to mean something, it had to please, to convey, to exist for everyone else's enjoyment while she just painted because she liked doing it and as a hobbyist she could afford to let Armand put a little piece of himself in the art too. "You know far more about how to create a masterpiece than me, none of my paintings will ever hang in a museum so I welcome the creativity of an expert making adjustments to help me make this the best it can be. It's almost a shame, utilising someone so masterpiece worthy for practise…but II have always been demanding of things that beyond my reach"

"When we have painted your body and the paint needs to dry I will give you a small tour of my home and show you some of my artworks. Mostly landscapes and shipwrecks...and tongue in cheek nudity. I find it amusing how much we mystify bodies...I have painted the entire zodiac as saucy little interpretations, I will show you Aquarius, it is my best one. Your maker would have scoffed and called my art low brow. He would be so angry I turned his delightful cherub to a dark seducer. Tut-tut-tut. The Renaissance bored me, innocence and delight is like a block of pure sugar-makes you sick after too many bites." Maybe because she thought the innocent and the naive weak and easy to prey upon. "Maybe I was bias, I spent most of the Renaissance alone, my companion off to war with my beloved son in tow. Maybe they pissed me off, all these angels and these saints in company of each other while I toiled bitter and cold and alone. Friends tried to cheer me up, and for that I am grateful.But I prefer baroque angels, swords and blood and devastation"

If she was to be an angel, let her be an Old Testament angel when they had agency and wrath. "Like every woman I learned to endure it. I was blessed, in my home I was often consulted and counted on for advice and opinion and not many had that privilege. It was not all golden praises, I was loved and respected but...there were times I wish he saw me less as his Goddess to worship and more as a flawed woman that missed him and was angered and upset. But I learned to allow my enemies to underestimate me, to smile as they degraded me and thought me stupid and naive, like my roses or my prickly poppies. Such beautiful blossoms, goodness knows how dangerous it would be should someone topple over the viewing railing" Like that little harlot that thought of taking my husband.She would never be beautiful again, not like she was, losing an eye and covered in scratches and welts by the time she got out of that bed of thorns and poppy.

"What is your favourite flower? Perhaps I can gift you a painting of you surrounded by them. Flowers are so thematic, I would quite like to do that, as thanks for your time and gracing my little observatory with your beauty and intelligence"

"It is attributed as the start of the movement of Naturalism, I believe? I enjoyed the period of neoclassism before it, the little bit I caught after my long sleep. I have never viewed it but I have seen pictures of the Death of Abel" She wondered where the sculpture was today, if it was still intact. "No by all means while we are working on the background and your form feel free to ramble. When I paint your face I will need you to be perfectly still and quiet. I am enjoying my education into the Renaissance and her art. Maybe I judged her too harshly, maybe one day soon I will revisit her masterpieces and view them with the lens of you weaved through them." Even the ones he didn't pose for, Amadeo's life had been dedicated to the art of that era, it was worth giving it one more chance to impress her.

"I have seen a few of his murals. I preferred his mind to his art, I thought him a better philosopher but when I wanted to coax my husband back I commissioned him and none else to paint my portrait, so perhaps you were a harsher critic than I." Ysabeau's brush hovered when he ask about Matthew. "He lives to upset and disappoint me one more day. I will tell him you sent your regards. He is in love with a woman that will cause ruin to him, to me, to our family. But he's in love-" she mocked, how bitchy she sounded mocking them. She forced herself to inhale. "She was a graduate student in Oxford. They met at the library when their gazes locked from across the room" she rolled her eyes.

"Apologies, that was beneath me" Ysabeau composed herself. "It is just so very disappointing that he does not listen to my advice. I swear, children were made to break our hearts and nothing else"

There was a hint of nervousness within him when he entered Ysabeau’s house again and handed Marthe his coat. He thanked her politely as she escorted him up the stairs to the observatory. Unlike the first time they met, Armand kept his hair in the original length of his turning. Usually, he would cut his raven locks into a short bob, but he figured that Ysabeau should have free rein on how she wanted his hair to look and kept it in its original length.

❝I am honoured that you thought of me as your model,❞ Armand greeted her properly with a gentle smile on his lips, something he wouldn’t show often. What a nice place to unleash your creativity. ❝Please,❞ he said as a confirmation to open the observatory dome. Immediately, Armand looked up to the stars with fondness in his eyes. It was completely different from his old Master’s studio, and he quite liked the vibe of this setting more.

Curiously, he walked over to look at the inspiration she laid out for him. Once again, it was different from the posing he did in the Renaissance, but a vampiric body could bend in every way possible and hold it without any sense of pain or exhaustion.

❝I can see the vision you have. And I will do my best to bring it to life.❞ He nodded once more before he went ahead through the white door, where he took off his clothes and slipped into the robe prepared for him. As soon as he was back, he settled on the spot he was supposed to sit on and pulled his left arm out of the robe so that the entire left side of his arm and torso were exposed. Certainly, Armand wasn’t as worried about his modesty as Ysabeau was. He took the grapes in his right hand after the crown was placed on top of his head and secured.

While holding the grapes in his right hand, Armand put his left palm on the ground to secure himself. Then he arched his back a little, tilted his head back as the posing sketch she laid out, and lifted the grapes.

❝You have a sharp eye, I can tell. I never noticed that my curls fall neater on my left.❞ He smirked just a tiny bit. He glanced over to the woman for a little bit. ❝Like that?❞ He asked as he assumed he had the right position. ❝Or do you wish for my head to tilt back a little more?❞ A soft hum fell from his lips as he kept his position without moving a muscle, like a perfect statue. ❝I do. At times at least. I never modelled after the blood was given to me. Do you know the painting ‘Adoration of the Shepherds with a Donor’? Painted by Palma Vecchio, currently in the Louvre. The boy you see kneeling on the far right is me, was me. It was the last painting I ever modeled for. It was common practice back in the day to wash out my skin. And just use my shape and my face as inspiration.❞ His voice was calm, smooth, and without any emotion toward the topic. ❝I’m currently hunting down all paintings Amadeo ever modeled for. Foolish, don’t you think?❞ He opened his eyes to look up at the stars. ❝Do you like astronomy? Or why the observatory?❞ 

"It is a collaborative effort more than a singular vision I wish you to execute. You have been a model for many of the Old Greats, you know the aura I wish to instil,you are free to add your own little adjustments and flare. It is simply art for my own enjoyment. Hands forget themselves if too much time passes, we are perfect mimics but I don't want to fall into relying on mimicry, I like the...unexpected muscle memory brings forth. Does that make sense?" she tried to explain how she didn't want to just mimic someone else's brush strokes, she wanted to practise again and keep hers alive. "I could think of no one else that could be the young Dionysus drowning cold winter with opulent dark wine."

"Perhaps you simply haven't spent as much time looking at yourself as I have looking at you" Ysabeau answered so matter-of-factly that she watched him quite a bit. He was eye catching, it was impossible not to want to look at him and admire his beauty. "I wasn't an artist as a mortal, we painted the walls of our temple, fixed the colouring of the murals, but light touch ups and colour theory don't make an artist. I learned to draw to catalogue my flowers..." she cringed and dabbed her brush into the white pot to lighten the colour of the tree stump.

"I know the painting, I will visit it to give it proper analysis. I am vastly more fond of Baroque art than Mannerism...or high renaissance. Ironic, I know, to ask the very definition of renaissance beauty to model for me, art ought to be tongue in cheek. The cherub cast as the definition of sinful revelry, the trickster, the seducer, oh if people saw they would scoff and I would grin as it evoked something. To pick on me they would have studied it more than to praise me" Ysabeau mused, she stated how she just wanted to paint for herself, for her own enjoyment and while she would put it up in her home it would hardly get many caring about it. "If I like it, I know exactly where I will put it up. In the old war room next to a very saucy interpretation of Aquarius. My knitting circle likes the perky bum cheeks on that one, the gorgeous 37 year old woman that posed for it is long gone, her posterior still survives" she laughed lightly.

"If your beloved wife went missing and the last thing she ever left behind was a tapestry on her loom, you would hold it, wouldn't you? Even if you did not think to study it at first, it would be something you would not abandon in a room in your pursuit to find her? I knew Philippe would see my loom and perhaps embrace my last creation, perhaps weep or scream in anger but he would notice it. Like Penelope I had to keep it unfinished until I was taken away but I counted that Philippe would notice it." she begun to explain as to how she got into astronomy.

"It started as a love for astronomy and then grew into passion for celestial phenomena. Long before you were made a few vampire clans were at war, and me and a dear friend when we needed to send a message to each other without keen watchers knowing ,we would be weaving to each other secret messages in tapestries, and I thought if I changed one constellation , Aquila, the Eagle, but weaved all others correctly my watchers would not notice, perhaps Philippe would not either but a son of Rome would notice missing stars on the eagle and I hoped he'd see it, Rome. And he did...when I was finally moved and my last creation was missing stars he told him Aquila is missing a star on his right wing and Philippe understood. Ysabeau is missing to the East of Rome. To weave everything else correct I had to study the constellations and get every other one precise and correct. If I merely weaved Aquila my watchers would know their hostage is sending a message but in a tapestry of 21 constellations when you think a woman silly...you think her longing for freedom." She kept talking to keep him engaged while his face was not being drawn but when the third stage of the painting would begin later it would be silence for both of them, she used a pencil first to lightly trace and then erased it to follow with a paintbrush and acrylic paint.

"Women's embroidery of handkerchiefs doesn't interest the men but to each other for centuries women sent messages. Counting bumps and spaces, hiding symbolisms in scenery. Anyhow, I fell in love with the stars, I read every book about them from that moment of despair, of having nothing but an ancient star chart carved on a wall and the constellations out my small window." she spoke as she figured out Armand's skin tone close enough since he spoke of always being washed out.

"Would you like to see the components of your skin tone?" she asked and come to kneel near him to show the colours she would use "Burnt sienna and titanium white for the foundational mid-tone, yellow Ochre and cadmium red for peachy and warm undertones and burnt umber for deep shadows. I think. When it dries. But I will take it as a challenge, to get as close to it as I can. Is there a painting in particular you enjoyed modelling for the most?" she asked and returned to her canvas. "Bring your chin just a breath up. Thank you."

"I will paint your hair a hint more auburn at it's edges, the red of the blood, of the wine, it will be our compromise on how Dionysus ought to look." As if wine dripped out of the darkness. There it goes again, the symbolism. "Your skin accurate but your hair dripping the wine. I have finished the background enough, take a break and when you return I will work on your form. Another break and then your face where you will have to endure the harsh light of my lamp shining directly on you" she repeated as she tended to do to help her models feel the achievement of one task done and then to focus. Armand up to that point had been more for reference and allowed to keep changing his position, vampires were perfect mimics so when he returned he would naturally fall correctly into place.

While he took a break the background could dry. "Come, I used acrylic paint for the background but I will paint you with oil paint. It dries much slower and allows more seamless blending. Acrylic and oil paint can have a beautiful relationship if you understand their very different vibes." she sniggered at the young word. "Acrylics are the fast drying impatient ones while oils demand you take your time and linger. That UV light helps it cure much faster, the oil will crack eventually as we didn't let the acrylic cure for a month but I don't have the patience for it and the limited timeline of it's pristine beauty is part of the art. As your visage cracks Dionysus' illusion does too-" Ysabeau spoke and looked up at him. "I decided that while you were on break to justify my impatience"

He died? Impossible, he was still here. But. Valentin lifted his free hand and pressed it on top of his chest. It was the first time he realized that he couldn't feel his heart anymore. Did he breathe the entire time? Vampire. It was a single word, and it kept ringing in Valentin’s ears. This couldn’t be possible. Everything within him wanted to fight against this. Maybe it was a bad dream, and he could just wake up from it? No. When Ysabeau took his hand, it felt too real.

This sudden reveal made it so much harder to control his thoughts. But everything seemed to make sense now. The weird behaviour of his body. The hunger and the lust for blood especially. And then she asked him something very important. Does he want this? Could she just end his misery? Valentin couldn’t feel much, but the strength she radiated was almost overwhelming. He could feel her age and power the more he let himself feel it.

“I want to live,” Valentin suddenly said. Weak maker. He couldn’t quite understand the meaning of this, but he knew that it wasn’t good. Valentin wasn’t dumb; of course he read and watched vampire stories, but how much of that was actually true?

He held tight to her hand without squeezing too much as he followed her. So many questions he wanted to ask, but he didn’t dare to. They found a drunk man, and without realizing it, Valentin felt the hunger coming over him. His body went into a weird state of automatism. The moment she gave him permission, Valentin jumped at the barely alive man. Like a feral animal, he pounced on the victim and started drinking from the wound. He drank in a messy way. Blood slobbered all over his chin and down his neck. He gulped down every single drop of blood he could get until he looked up with a gasp.

"Would it make you feel better if we pretended this was a bad dream? One that you must explore and endure until you wake?" she could hear his thoughts and how her hand felt too real for that, a hand of marble in strength and coldness in that it wasn't really cold but there was a coolness to it more noticeable in the warmth of the living, Valentin's hands had grown cold too by now. He must have been starving, she saw it in his automation, the autopilot of a body driven by pure instinct and how it had stained his youthful face. The face many men had admired…

"We are preternatural, the mortals ignore the obvious signs but we see them. We no longer belong to the natural world, you will never grow older, decay, change." Ysabeau took her pack of pocket tissues, licked one and cleaned his face the way mothers cleaned the schmutz of a boy's face who played in the mud.

"Even amongst us there are creatures whose unnaturalness disturbs. Ancient immortals lived too long, endured too much and still prevail and that is the unease you are feeling. The unease of being near a creature that saw far more than she ought to, that survived everything until now. As a vampire you sense weaknesses and strengths...or will be able to. Vampires have an aversion to ancients, somewhat an uncanny valley effect. The heebie-jeebies." She could not sense another vampire nearby. Where was his Maker? Why him?

"You were born in perilous times for our kind. Come...we must leave. My housekeeper will have your clothes laundered." The year was 2023 and a certain book was trending on every bookshop in every city. "Who was the last man you remember in your company? Can you remember his eyes? His nails? It was a man that made you, your mind remembers it but I can not see him. Not uncommon, if babies remembered their birth they would die of a heart attack." Maybe the vampire made him forget but she doubted it due to the weak blood in his veins, the trauma of it must be the reason.She could smell a man on him, not in body scent exactly as vampires no longer had a natural scent but in the chosen scents.

"Ysabeau de Clermont" she introduced herself extending her hand to him again. "You may call me Ysabeau if you wish. Or mother when we grow close. I don't like mom but I do like maman or mamá." her hand was still in his and she guided him away holding it the way a mother held on to a mischievous toddler prone to running off. It was that simple to her to adopt one. She wanted a 'baby' and she got one.

Would Valentin notice how they had crossed quite the distance when they stood in front of an old brownstone in Brooklyn? "It's been quite the night for you, sit down" she coaxed and would summon another vampire, Marthe to come and be tasked with getting Matthew's room ready for Valentin.

"Take from me my young one-it is alright it will not hurt. I will give you my blood every now and again to strengthen you." Her blood rage could still be passed to those she made but proven to not be contagious to already made vampires. Had the frenzy she witnessed been just coincidence in 621? Or had so much time passed, so many cycles of feeding vampires could no longer contract it off her? She only knew what research told her, genetic research in the hands of her son.

Their conversation appeared heavy to anyone who would’ve listened to them, but to Armand it was a very delightful and enlightening conversation. And the more he listened to that aristocratic woman, the more he felt intrigued to know more. There was much more to her than what she displayed on the outside. Armand could feel it even though he couldn’t point to it. What he was certain of was that other vampires could feel fear in her presence.

It would certainly take him a while to stomach the fact that his maker was not dead. This piece of information had made it to his conscious mind, but he didn’t allow himself to dwell on it, as this would trigger emotions he’d rather keep hidden behind a brick wall for now. He nodded a little bit upon hearing what she said about her husband.

❝A Greek man of wisdom, I can tell. The Palazzo was in a Greek neighbourhood, so I must admit that my exposure to Greek culture was very common to me.❞ Oh, Amadeo used to love Greek food so much, but that was information they didn’t need in this conversation. But at times Armand found himself thinking about his mortal days more fondly. Slowly, he shook his head a little bit.

❝I cannot see an old woman, only a woman who has gathered a lot of wisdom and strength through years of hardships and happy times. A woman of incredible beauty, if I may say. But you are not wrong. As much as my brothers and I were thankful for the life my Maker offered us, we were apprentices in troublesome days…❞ Armand gestured a little bit at himself. ❝And as you can tell, someone looking like me had to watch his steps.❞  And yet, he didn’t argue as he agreed that he was no cherub and had never been one. 

Utterly interested, he listened to what made her feel drawn to her son, called Matthew. And the more she spoke, the more he had to admit that he admired that. Armand caught himself way too often that he lost touch with mortals and mortal matters. He had seen so many people die of illnesses in Paris, and it never touched his heart. Mortal affairs never mattered to him much, and now with her words, he suddenly realized that his way of thinking might have been wrong. Maybe he should find a mortal to ground himself? 

❝I don’t think I'm the right person to judge what constitutes good behavior. All I know about being good is that no one is immune to making a wrong decision. I respect people who commit themselves to a faith if they draw strength from it. But committing to faith solely out of desperation or a sense of imposed obligation is the wrong approach.❞ Something Armand knew very well as he made this mistake twice. ❝And yet, sometimes what we interpret as a good deed is, in the eyes of another, an atrocity. All I know is that those men, like my Maker, who claim to be higher beings of good and demure nature are those who carry the darkest sins in their hearts. I shall not speak ill of my maker. But if you ask any vampire if they would trust Marius de Romanus or me, they would choose him. Does he carry loyalty? Does he carry unwavering devotion? I did not experience such a thing. But tales will sing his praises. What you will find about me are tales of a manipulative, gruesome Coven Master who beheaded a toddler vampire.❞ He shrugged a little bit. ❝So no, Madame. Gods don’t matter. And pious men’s words don’t matter either. A good man is loyal to their family and loved ones. A good man possesses unwavering devotion. A man who breaks the rules for those he loves is a good man. And that comes from me, as rules are my only anchor of survival.❞ He laughed a bit at himself. ❝Now, I have to apologize for rambling.❞    

"Will tales sing of his praises?" Ysabeau asked find their conversation rather stimulating actually, she was a vampire that had endured for the past few years only for her children, all of them, including the ones made by Philippe whose love for her faltered she loved them at the best of her capacity, the only remaining of the twin pillars their family was made on. She thought of death often but could she burden Matthew with the mourning? Her stepdaughters? Her stepsons? No, tonight she felt like perhaps life might still have something to it, this mystery of Armand's. If she focused on that maybe this decade could be endured. And then the next...maybe he caught her attention enough to ignite old instincts. To watch over, to protect, to guide, he spoke of being deemed dangerous.

What if he was to walk the next corner and the one after with a sense of someone always watching, what if she decided, right now, she would not leave him out of her sight and that to be his penance for being fascinating and a good conversationalist. What then...

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown." Vampiric toddler? She would have to know him better before demanding that to be explained but her head had cocked and eyes narrowed. Who could possible inflict this to a toddler. How was that even possible.

"If you had been just slightly less beautiful your life would have been one of suffering, I am sure." Ysabeau dared to put her index finger under his chin and admire every centimetre of his face taking it in. Turned his head left...then right. "The Old Masters would have paid quite the coin to paint you, from the left I would imagine. It is your more striking side. Paler than you would have liked, seeing someone else on the canvas you inspired and wondering why of all your beauty you ought to be sandy and sun kissed rather than sun devoured." she released his chin, although she never truly held it firmly.

"Unwavering devotion. Such interesting words you choose and I think you choose them on purpose. Must be hard, to know his devotion wavered consistently. I loved him once, as a friend, a very dear and beautiful friend but he wavered so much, Armand. Had he still been a friend my heart would break to know that he did not come to find you. My heart broke when I looked at him and I had nothing but disgust left for coveting another man's woman...while one was on his arm unaware she did not measure up to his desires. A man I turned to for counsel when no one else could be trusted, a man that made me feel safe and consoled me when my husband was at war... and to then in a moment see nothing but yet another vile man wishing a woman soil her companionship...abandon her companion for him."

"I suppose if he was here he would condemn me for loving a man that had many mortal lovers in our long marriage. Perhaps that is why he thought he could lament that Bianca left and Lydia did not...yes I am sure that is the reason. No...he did not tell me. It was Bianca that told me. Yes, I am sure of it. It was so long ago...it must have been Bianca. I was not well...I was sick." Oh to casually mention Bianca.

"I would dread the day we meet again, Marius and I. I hope it never happens, he is so very powerful and I am so very disgusted." Yes, it was that deep for her. She was willing to die for her principles and she knew Marius physically capable if provoked.

They would for now part ways and not speak until she headed back to Sept Tours...did she head back to Sept Tours or had Marthe handled her demands and emailed Armand? She would follow him always just far enough away to not intrude but a presence would always be there watching. Studying.

Her jests were not performative or ostentatious. Blink and you miss it, her sense of humor. It reminded him of his mother. Witty and sharp, but reserved. She only ever spoke when she had something to say. Not withholding but intentional. Neither of them wasted words on subjects or people they had no interest in and he appreciated it. As someone who often spoke just for the sake of filling silence, it was familiar and comforting, and did in fact illicit a smile and a light chuckle from him. He looked away, only to pick at the cuticle alongside his glass nails, a habit he'd never had as a human but one that had preoccupied him and his anxieties as a vampire. She spoke of his grief and it was the comfort he sought.

She did not dismiss his feelings, nor ignore the musings as he offered them. It was so easy for people to just remain silent and yet she spoke for him. To him. Not like an irritating child, not with impatience at his self reflection and need to share his feelings. It was not a burden, at least not yet. Oh, how he loved his maman and how quickly she tired of his feelings in all their intensity. Then, he looked away from his finger tips and nodded. "I do. I can't explain it. I feel that I am different for everyone. I want to...be wanted. And heard and seen. But everyone sees something different. Everyone wants something different. I have forgotten myself, except when I am with you. Or maybe just the version of me most like myself."

A strangely self aware confession. She touched his cheek and he turned into it, eyes closing briefly as she continued to speak. And then, her arm was around him and he was torn between becoming very still as if she might realize what she'd done and pull away and melting into her, relaxing finally. He'd been wound so tight for so long, the drugs are the only way out of his own head. Well, usually. It was a short embrace, but the smell of her was overwhelming. He opened his eyes as she released him and wet his lips. Suddenly serious again, a chiding, and he shook his head. "Don't worry. I don't need it with you." He fell quiet for a moment, looking at his hands in his lap, before he lifted his gaze to her again.

"The silence is...not something I enjoy. Too long spent alone, I can't do that again." Seventy years, alone. He swallowed hard and continued. "When I'm on stage, that's all there is. Just the music. Me and the band and the crowds. But after, it can be more difficult. The songs make me feel everything over and over again. The people they're about, the things that have happened. I crack my heart open every night and bleed for them but if I'm not careful I'll just bleed and bleed and bleed and never stop. I pour myself out. They sing it back to me and we connect and we are one and they love me, or hate me, and then after...the quiet. That's the worst part."

And that was the truth, or most of it. Then he offered a smile, despite the melancholy of his confession. "I have some songs that haven't been release. Maybe we'll go platinum." He wasn't sure why he felt compelled to tell her those things. They hadn't known one a other very long and yet he'd felt a connection to her from the moment they'd met. Like she knew how he felt or at the very least, could understand. And it had been a long time since he thought anyone might understand. Perhaps part of it was her occasional resemblance to the first woman he had ever loved but it couldn't just be that, could it? It felt like more. Not superficial, but real.

"An artist must bleed and tear themselves open and raw for the muse to be sated. I was once a patron of Rembrandt, another of his benefactors , Constantijn Huygens, spoke it with such profound poetry that it struck me how I have never met an artist that did not suffer. You artists idolise it, the pain, I wonder some days if it was worth it. We would not have the Stoning of Saint Stephen but as fond as I was of his art I did not like the man very much. He lacked....diplomacy. Alienated many of his royal patrons, alienated me as well. In British slang they would call him goby." she spoke the last word in English rather than French as was their conversation. "Fitting word for a man that flapped his gums an awful lot to say nothing."

Ysabeau inhaled a breath she did not need just in realising she once more lost the forest for the trees, the habit of an ancient vampire that got too used to vocalising her thoughts to herself in empty rooms when Marthe grew tired of her soliloquies. "What a comfort you must be to your fans, willing to crack yourself open and bare your emotions raw, your soul for them to devour, and how empty it must feel when they have had their fill and you are left with the void of their overconsumption"

Ysabeau sheathed her pencil in her sketch pad and smoothed out her jacket and clothes to depart and allow the next visitors to come, she would visit the orchids next. She was rather fond of difficult flowers. She threaded her hand on his to lead him away from the main display and underground to a very dark cavern like room. "Rhizanthella gardneri. The Western Australian Underground Orchid. One of the world's most mysterious flowers, it spends its entire lifecycle entirely underground in Australia and relies on thread-like fungi for nutrients. They are rather vampiric looking aren't they. Buried so deep into the soil, they are very sensitive to light, even the flash of your camera could disturb them." she sat on the ledge of the glass to be close to the display.

"It is parasitic. It steams nutrients from the fungi it targets and it is a genetic anomally, it lacks chlorophyll and cannot photosynthesize. And yet it survives by creating this strange three-way symbiosis on the roots of the Broom Brush. The fungs survives off the roots of the plants and the orchid survives of the fungus. I have five bulbs at home- one has refused to bloom. I call her Agatha-seems like a stubborn hags sort of name." Ysabeau would speak of the flower to give Lestat respite of his soul baring.

“Sounds odd out of the mouth of someone who grew up with Roman ideals of marrying at thirteen or fifteen, doesn’t it?” Marius shook his head a little bit. Back in the day, age was viewed from a different perspective, as most would die in their thirties. The lifespan wasn’t as long as it is now, and even now, it was still not always a long life for mortals, but reaching forty has become way more common. “I met Pandora when she was ten. Back then, I knew that I wanted to marry her, but I was twenty-five already. I wanted to marry her when she was old enough for the standards back then, but her father did not allow us due to my status.”  Marius stopped talking and hummed a little as he lingered in his thoughts about Amadeo. The boy who gave him a headache every single night. “I consider it when he reaches his twenties. He is barely sixteen, maybe not even that. We cannot know for sure.”

Ysabeau’s questions and her sharp intelligence made her an excellent conversation partner. He could see what Philippe saw in his wife. But Marius also knew that she was fierce and should be feared for her viciousness. A couple of power and strength, he could see that.

“I was hoping for him to be demure and pure. Like Botticelli once pictured his angels.❞  But just like Botticelli, Amadeo disappointed him. The fact that this boy with a great talent for art could not touch a brush anymore without hyperventilating disappointed him greatly. “Oh, I know. I shouldn’t have. But a fever almost took him away from me. I did not have it in me to let him die like that.❞ And Marius considered himself weak for that. He knew that to some like Philippe or Ysabeau’s maker, darkness was a good thing. And maybe they were right, as only a splinter of darkness can secure the survival of the mind. But could he really make his angel fall from heaven like that? But her words brought a new perspective to him that he never thought one would give him. She loved her son Matthew; Marius could hear it in every word she spoke. And maybe it was her wisdom he needed right now in his inner conflict regarding Amadeo.

"You almost never speak of your mortal years. I can imagine you did not take the rejection of her father well, you are a very prideful man and I can imagine when youth still clung to you, prouder still." Ysabeau did wonder what his status was but she could fill in the blanks that he was simply not wealthy enough or perhaps not high born enough. "Understood. Age then" she could accept his definition of 'becoming a man' it was a very pragmatic approach so at least it was easy enough a concept.

"Oh, my dearest friend I took but a few glances at him and I could tell he is not made to be demure. He is a mischief-maker, demure boys do not cling to their masters demanding more attention. How boring it would be for you, to have a demure man at your side. No challenge, no zest, like lemon cake without the lemons the saccharine sweetness rotting your teeth and making you sick" No, she could not imagine Marius thriving with a demure person as his companion.

"You speak so fondly of Botticeli, or spoke. What has changed? Has he disappointed you?"

"Matthew has disappointed me in so many ways, Marius. It is what children do, break your heart and disappoint you. As their teacher you are more adept than anyone to understand the sheer disappointment our fledglings are. Never listen, always think themselves right, and who must clean up their messes? Us. A thankless and arduous task that we endure because we love them. But alright, I shall get to know your Amadeo, I shall speak with him and asses how he carries himself and I shall report back to you in the same urgency and seriousness as I would to my beloved Philippe. Let my opinion be a guide and no more than that...none know better than you on what is right"

"Bonsoir mon petit."

And assess the young man she would, she had asked Marius to allow them to be joined and she felt beautiful in her dress and mask. A party was just what she needed to get her mind off things, a night of revelry and political play. "I feel safer already." She did not need protection from a mortal but what a good excuse it made should someone wonder why Marius invited Amadeo if he needed an excuse. She did not know Bianca or how deep her friendship with them both was.

"I had no time to buy her a present. Do you think she will like it?" Ysabeau questioned showing off the Sapphire pendant in it's box. "I hope it will be suitable, I must admit I do not meet with courtesans often. I find them fascinating, from a purely political perspective. Courtesans and servants know of all the messes the noble lords leave behind- hm." Ysabeau never had to worry about being seductive or alluring, a glance of her had been enough to bring Philippe to his knees. Still, never too old to learn some secrets of subterfuge and cunning intelligence.

Bianca's home was beautiful, well decorated, large and so very clean. So many thought themselves so privileged to attend her soirée,men of wealth, men of titles, the sons of the council of ten, it seemed that only the crème de la crème would attend.

"Honoured to make your acquittance signora. May I gift you one of my necklaces in gratitude?" she asked and gave the box to a servant that presented it to Bianca. Interesting, everyone wore masks and Bianca was the only one to know who hid behind each one. "Many speak of your intelligence and beauty signora, they say that you are the jewel of Venice and eclipse even your rival Veronica Franco" She was the only courtesan of Venice Ysabeau knew off and she just guessed they were rivals. "Perhaps when you tire of the wine we could speak of politics, I would like to hear a young Venetian's opinion on the war. I am willing to believe you have opinions on which diplomats ought to represent Venice in the talks of Armistice-" Which would fail.

"Come, dance with me." she demanded off Marius just as an excuse to step away from Bianca and his apprentice and watch the young man from afar on how he would act. Many thought many thoughts of Amadeo, his curls must betray who he was even behind his mark or maybe the colour of his skin. Delightful cherub...the pseudonym was almost cute.

And then he heard it. His Maker Marius was alive. He survived the fire, however that happened, and he did not come to Paris. Armand froze even though he tried to remain composed and unbothered by the piece of information. But deep in his heart, he felt something shattering into pieces. Something that couldn’t be repaired again, as he was shattered too many times: his heart. His dead heart was never treated with kindness and care. Slowly, he dragged his tongue over his bottom lip, then he lifted his gaze and looked over to her.

❝I want to believe that whoever is from your blood will be treated differently, Madame.❞ Maybe he was wrong, and she abandoned her fledgling(s) as well; it was not something Armand could know. But she carried herself like a grand dame with strong principles. Armand hummed softly while an almost sad little smile stretched on his lips as he recalled the moment when death held him in a tight grasp. ❝Roman Pride, perhaps? What is worse than being denied to be the tragic God? What is worse to a man like that than being told to leave the room as his face is not the one the dying child wants to see when taking their last breath? He considered my face a jewel that was given to him, a jewel he wanted to carry through the palazzo to show how the tragic fate had taken it from him. Romans are very prideful, aren’t they?❞

Armand turned his gaze to her when she talked about her fledgling. Matthew. And the way she spoke was with such fondness that you would only hear from a mother. And the bit of background story he got already told him more than she might think. ❝Did you find your Matthew by accident when he was nine? Or did you have an instinct within you that brought you to him?❞ he asked curiously, even though he knew it was quite a private thing to talk about. After all, Armand knew little to nothing about why Marius really rescued him from the brothel without him having seen Amadeo’s face first.

But when he was revealed as to why Ysabeau was not fond of Marius anymore, he understood where her animosity came from. That was horrible, and Armand couldn’t help but sigh softly. ❝I assume that this woman is his first fledgling. He never talked about her, but Santino revealed some things.❞ Hence why Armand wasn’t as clueless as Amadeo once had been. He shook his head a little bit. ❝This story confirms what my instinct always told me. My Maker only knows what he had when he lost it. But he should respect a companionship, no matter how much it hurts to have lost someone you love. And I respect you for standing your ground. Companionship is…❞ Armand stopped while thinking about the right word. ❝…sacred. Loneliness is our death eventually. How many seek the fire when this dreadful loneliness has eaten all their will to live?❞ He shook his head. ❝I lost one companionship. I had my heart broken three times. My Maker, who did not love me back and couldn’t accept me as a companion. Lestat de Lioncourt, who would not accept my love for him as his heart belonged to someone else, and the third, Louis de Pointe du Lac. Lestat’s fledgling. Our union did not last very long, as grief for his daughter closed his heart too much. And I always knew that his heart would always belong to his Maker. I believe that we truly give our full heart to only one. And those who follow after need to wait for the right moment until the heart and mind are willing to accept making a little bit of space for something new.❞

And he felt his words confirmed, hearing that her loss changed the world completely for her. He remained in his frozen position but only to give her space. A woman like her, carrying herself like a queen, would not lower her armor easily. Frankly, it was always a high risk among their kind to show weaknesses.

❝I consider you strong, Madame. You are still here. You did not follow, and you endure the coldness of this world. Not stupid, Madame. I admire you for your strength. You endure the worst pain a vampire could endure, and you carry yourself like a Queen with your head up high and your principles strong. You speak fondly of your son Matthew, and I can hear how much love you have for him. Is that where you take your strength from?❞

He knew nothing of her blood, of the taint in her creations and the selfishness of her to still impart the dark gift on those she wished to keep close to her for eternity and she would make sure he never knew. No one was to know her dark secret, some of them are made to be sealed and taken to the tomb and history forgetting all about it. "Perhaps. Perhaps you were such a cunning child that you forced his hand, that you coaxed a god to his knees to serve your demands. I doubt that it was as spontaneous as it appeared but I have seen men turn the twists of luck and fate herself to their advantage with but a few choice words." Ysabeau concurred that it could very well had been his pride matched with the right words in his ear.

"I did not know many Romans, we were occupied by the Hellenists when I was a mortal girl and not many walked into our temple with pride on their shoulders. But yes, I have not met a Roman that did not carry the arrogance of their empire on their brow-" Marius, Baldwin, Aurelia, Melita. They all had that trait, of believing themselves the better in any room. The authority even on matters they knew little about. "A warning to all the heavenly host that cherubs best stay light hearted and delightful lest the darkness touch their light" Armand's choice of words certainly made it very biblical didn't it. Retribution and penance all in one broken body.

She returned to her files finding things that Armand might find of use to him on his search for answers. She found herself quite invested in it too, their species was being hunted, she best study the wave of destruction. "Perhaps it is easy to be a proud Roman. There was a sense of identity instilled, fraternity. Unity. Perhaps I will never understand the strength of national pride. We were occupied by the Hellenists, the temple I was taken to serve served a Greek Goddess. My husband of over two thousand years was a Greek. Gauls would call me Greek, Romans would call me a Gaul...and my husband would have told me that Gods care little for the identity of kings from their divine mountain that sees all." She mused and put more papers in an envelope.

"You have an old woman rambling, child. Maybe I envy your beautiful youth. Maybe I pity it. To be young and beautiful in times of turmoil and peril is a dreadful thing" Armand was just a whisper of life compared to her. "Yet I doubt you ever got to enjoy the folly of your youth, cherub."

"You are no more a cherub than I am Thetis or Olympia. Men put us in pedestals to worship when a warm embrace would have been more preferable."

She turned to him once more. "We lived close to the town he was born. Not close enough to mingle with the mortals but close enough that should I wish for new tapestries and drapes it was the town we would venture to, he had such cold eyes for a child. Dark hair and glaciers for eyes, spoke to his mother of the learnings of the day and hid in her skirts when a cart rumbled a little too close. I watched him his whole life, just because I could. Just to ground myself to the perspective of a mortal when war was at my door. It is easy to forget how fragile life is, easier to make peace have a face, I named my mercy Matthew. I named my vengeance the same. It was not his name at the time but such things are private. I watched him grow, I watched the son become a master of his father's craft and pious holy men bless his hands for he built monuments of faith to his God"

"Then he married. Had a son. A beautiful fat babe and I was delighted for him. For his lovely wife. The fever came, it took so many. It took so many lives that towns became villages and on the scaffolding of his last chapel, devoted to his son I watched my mercy plummet. What would his God think of the waste of his Gift? His Lord Jesus does not forgive such acts.I was so profoundly lonely, I had no one for my own. My husband had his children to surround himself with...I had no one that was my own. And so I took him. I told him to serve penance to his Lord for the rest of eternity and if his faith is so strong thousands of years of penance might offer him the mercy of a forgiving God. He thought me an angel, if I must be one can I be one of the Old Testament I would say. When they had purpose and dripped with retribution against hubris.And he served me well, as my son. My tortured boy- despite everything he was and is my mercy. Do Gods matter, Armand? If a good man is only good fearing the disapproval of his Heavenly Father is he less good than one that choose goodness for himself instead?"

“I’m your worst nightmare!“

“And if the truth is terrible?“

“I’m not a lady. I’m a witch.“

“Cake is not the issue here.”

“I assure you I will not kill you.”

“Good. No preconceived ideas.“

“I am so fed up with being young.”

“Is this a dagger I see before me?“

“The money should be on the inside.“

“It’s a sword! It’s not meant to be safe!”

“I hope you’re not going to kill anyone.”

“History needs shepherds, not butchers.“

“I’ve heard of them. Bloody dangerous things.”

“Open your eyes and then open your eyes again.“

“When you break rules, break ‘em good and hard.“

“People don’t want to see what can’t possibly exist.“

“The answer is that, terrible or not, it is still the truth.”

“It’s like chess, you know. The Queen saves the King.“

“I just think the world ought to be more sort of organized.“

“We walk out of here unharmed or the girl gets it, all right?“

“Don’t put your faith in gods. But you can believe in turtles.“

“You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.“

“Oh, all true. Most of them. A bit of exaggeration, but mostly true.“

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever.”

“You’ve haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.“

“You cannot fool me anymore. Or touch me. Or anything that is mine.”

“You had to find the truth for yourself. That is how we all find the truth.“

“I’m the one where this man comes out of nowhere and kills you, stone dead.“

“It seems that you have managed to retain this even though you are authority.”

“It’s not gambling to play against someone who’s no good. It’s common sense.“

“You mean… the one with the giant cabbage and the sort of whirring knife thing?“

“I always used to consider that you had a definite anti-authoritarian streak in you.“

“She doesn’t stand there and scream helplessly. She makes other people do that.”

“Ye mustn’t be afraid to ask for help. Pride is a good thing, my girl, but it will kill you in time.“

“You can sort of tell the difference if you look closely. It doesn’t have as many sharp edges.“

“You forced the world to give it to you, no matter the price, and the price is and always will be high…“

“Sometimes the moon is light and sometimes it’s in shadow, but you should always remember it’s the same moon.“

“What we’re going to do is keep the peace. That’s our job. We’re not going to be heroes, we’re just going to be… normal.”

“But you’ve found it, even if at the time you didn’t know what it was you were finding, and you grabbed it by its scrawny neck and made it work for you.“

“No-one likes being told it’s their lucky day. That sort of thing does not bode well. When someone tells you it’s your lucky day, something bad is about to happen.“

“You think there are the good people and the bad people. You are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.“

Nothing seemed to show on Armand’s face, but the tremor he felt inside, the turmoil deep within him, was growing by the second. He didn’t have to read her mind to know that something was terribly wrong right now. Their community was small. Crossing paths, especially among ancients, was much more common than expected. Armand only met younger vampires. Ysabeau was the first vampire who had seen more moons than him, but maybe he should have considered that the name Marius de Romanus was not as unknown to her.

❝So, he is alive?❞ Armand said it, just like that, without any emotion in his voice. And maybe there was no emotion after all because he didn’t know how he felt. Certainly, if Marius wrote a letter, he must have survived the fire, and he never went to save his Amadeo. Armand smiled a little bit, but this time, it was a sadder smile than expected. ❝He is alive and was unwilling to get his Amadeo back. I am not surprised about that, Madame.❞ And here he was again, composed, statuesque, and without any sign of sadness within him.

❝You must know, he never wanted to give me the Dark Gift. Amadeo was poisoned. When Marius returned home, Amadeo was already dying. The blood wouldn’t have healed him anymore. I— Amadeo— coaxed him. Witty words of a cunning, dying child.❞  Well, he died at twenty-seven. He hadn’t been a child anymore, but a child to Marius, so this may count. ❝It has taken me centuries to realize that the doctrines Santino taught me were nothing but foolish lies. A fledgling, starved and tortured, can be broken easily. I will not say that it does not hurt to know that my Maker never came for me, as I secretly hoped for so many centuries that he would come back to me. My obsession with Lestat de Lioncourt stemmed from the foolish mistake of a child looking for his lost father.❞ He furrowed his brows a little bit while thinking about it. Philippe. Baldwin. Baldwin. A Roman just like his master Marius. ❝I apologize for unsettling you, Madame. That wasn’t my intention. You know my Maker better than I do. All I can tell you is that he did not love Amadeo as much as Amadeo loved him. I can say that now.❞ 

He fell silent, watched her getting to the window, and just stood straight as he watched and listened. He couldn’t help but smile a little bit, because he could see why Marius wanted to paint her. Ysabeau was a beautiful woman while also radiating royalty and strength. It was hard to describe, but she was drawing him in more than Armand wanted to admit.

❝That is a pity. I am certain the painting must have been very beautiful.❞ He hummed a little bit as he tried to read between the lines. Marius must have done something to upset her, and it couldn’t be about Amadeo, so Armand figured that something must have happened before Amadeo? Or after?  ❝I shan’t speak ill of my Maker as I am not aware what he did to upset you. I got the impression that my Maker always longed for something…or someone. He never said anything to me, but there was this look he gave me at times. Amadeo always wanted to be his companion. And I— he—thought that in the blood love would be given to him. But whatever, whoever, he lost, no one seems to be able to fill the void. And I must admit, I envy that. Knowing how it feels to be loved, to belong. It is something I have never experienced and I may never will; some of us are not as fortunate. Or, Madame, is it unfortunate? Forgive me my impudence once again, but I get the impression that you found what I am still looking for in your late husband?❞ 

"Your Maker survived the Palazzo fire." She knew that for an absolute fact, she did not know if he was still alive but still didn't matter, what mattered was that Marius did not come for him back then despite being able to. Ysabeau would think kindly that Marius did not ask them to respect their grief...or not wishing consequences on someone else for his failure to protect his fledgling or how ever Marius viewed the incident of Amadeo being kidnapped. "Mine wished that I would run frenzied and destroy the world, disappointing us is what makers do" Ysabeau so casually mentioned something to him that most of her children did not even know. She did not speak of her Maker, of her affliction, of the disappointment that her restraint and control brought her maker.

"Witty words of a cunning child. A man of over one thousand and five hundred springs coaxed by witty words of a cunning, dying child. A man that resisted empires, covens, enemies, wars...brought to action by choice words." She did not think it plausible. "I don't know, I was not there, perhaps you did. I doubt it to be true. I doubt that to be known to you was incidental. I knew I might choose my Matthew since he was but nine winters old. Perhaps it would be him, perhaps it would be someone else but when he was chosen, it seemed so incidental to him. Mercy. Duty. Penance. So many words for a cure to loneliness." Why was she telling him this? A stranger. Because what could he do with it now that had not already been done to her, she risked nothing but humiliation and she was too old to care anymore about her long list of choices being judged.

"I will speak ill of him then. He longed for a taken woman and tried to make her abandon her companion for him. I said it, I spoke ill of him...now what. Shall we await for swift and righteous judgement of gossip?" she asked, she said this knowing it was an insult to mention his dishonourable action maybe hoping word for her gossip would reach him and she could ask if Armand's claims were true. "Honourable Marius with his art and his philosophies and pacifism. I admired him so much, I wished I could be like him. Quietly living and allowing others to live, forgiving. Pacifistic. You ought to strike your dishonourable eyes for gazing at her with longing I said and fled his presence in disgust...and have not spoken or heard from him since. Late 1600s or so-"

Such a small thing for some to wish for your first fledgling back but not to someone like her who thought companionship and marriage to be sacred. "Well in would appear retribution of my wagging tongue is taking a rain check." Maybe part of her thought he was listening somewhere and be provoked to come and silence her.

"I do not know what is worse. To have love and lost or to have never loved at all. All I know is that the only thing that every chose me was taken from me and the world has grown colder and dimmer ever since. No books or poems write what happens when you find your soul's twin and then are left to navigate the world without them-" She thought about it for a moment, took an unnatural motion to climb on the window with a single blood tear threatening her right eye...stood there and then sighed.