Staring, staring through the rainstreaked glass – droplets spattering endlessly against the iron sash, something in his head to clear that couldn't quite be cleansed. The sun was setting, but her progress was difficult to gauge; the horizon nothing but a smudge of black clouds, the rains rattling against the panes as Lucius continued to watch. The keening wail of a violin wafted through the damp in the air, bringing a little warmth to the room as it wound its way about the cold ashes of the hearth, the dead lamps sitting upon the tables, whispered over the rug to creep up behind and trill softly into his ear. A sigh followed. His hands clasped, unclasped. He turned, walked to the table and refilled the empty glass. 

Settling himself comfortably in his favoured chair -- perched at an angle to the dead fire – one leg propped against his knee, one hand clasped about his ankle, the glass balanced precisely in the other, he proceeded to watch. 

“So very... melancholy...” he whispered to himself, voice scarcely loud enough to carry past the tenuous notes of the weeping instrument; a thin smile formed on his lips – one he swiftly masks with a sip from the tumbler. But she does not see, her own gaze downcast, eyes half lidded, body swaying to and fro with each quavering note... his own eyes close as well, the smile coming unbidden to his lips once more as a memory carries him away with the rising swell of the music...

A grey evening, overcast and clouded – one he knew they would love. One he had waited for so long now himself. No other would do, so he had long since planned. She was smiling then, giggling and blushing as she lowered the bow and looked toward the trampled grass below, avoiding her lover's gaze. They stood upon the crest of the hill, gazing toward the endless sea of grey green below, the moor stretching out before them in vast expanse; suddenly, without warning, she lays a slender hand on his breast – exclaims as her eyes go wide:

“What was that!” He starts, pauses a moment – a frown quickly erased, a smile replaced as he waves a hand.

“Nothing my dear, nothing at all! I'm sure of it!” She smiles at this, but it is uneasy now. I smile myself – smile in anticipation as she lifts the bow to the strings again, allow my eyes to drift shut as I strain to hear... to hear her breath, to hear every motion, as though I could hear every beautiful emotion as they reveal themselves through the strings. But the music stops. My eyes snap open. Something, somewhere – some irrepressible urge in the deepest recesses of my mind – the tension that had been waiting so long, the release I had desired. Waited, denied myself – even tortured my own being – and now I sprang. Sprang in that very moment as the music stops, as he reaches to envelope her in their last embrace.

The screams. I know – know as surely as I feel them myself, as the music changes, as the tones become erratic – know she feels them too, remembers as clearly as our thoughts and memories of the time have become entwined. And then it stops. The last few notes quiver into a final profusion of disarray, trail away into weeping. Tears and sobbing. The violin clatters to the tiled floor, the distinct crack of aged wood on hard stone. I rise and pad softly over to where she sits. Thrust my index finger beneath her chin, raise the tearful eyes to stare forcefully into my own.

“You were wonderful... my dear... exquisite...” Her face blanches at this, and she manages a moment to snarl – one delicate lip curling upward in disgust, one newly acquired fang glinting in the glare of the solitary chandelier dangling from the rafters far above our heads. Some strength in this one! I laugh. Release her from my gaze, allow her to bury her stricken face in her hands, sob after sob wracking her form as I stalk my way back to the window.

'Strong...” I mutter, quietly to myself – outside her hearing now, not that it matters. “But not strong enough; what did his blood taste of to you I wonder?” I raise my voice, though her answer concerns me little; something in the intensity of the tears as they break out anew, however, is all the reply I seek. “Yours was sweeter, sweeter by far my dear. And just think!” Here I pause, gaze out into the deepening shadows beyond, gesture vaguely with the now-empty glass: “He gave you everything he promised. Even his own life, down to the last drop of blood. How perfect! Might anyone have conceived of a love so pure?”

A rage now, a rage as simple and directed as the same that led her to destroy her own beloved – I sense her rushing up behind me long before, perhaps, she is even aware of the motion herself. A swift step to the side, a benevolent smile as I grab her by the throat and force her to the floor all in an instant; her breath is hot on my face, her eyes wide, pupils empty voids. 

'Shhh... Careful, dear – and what happens when we allow ourselves to become so?” Her energy spent, she can do nothing but lie there as I rise again and turn to leave; sobs alternate with rasping gasps for air as both fists flex convulsively.

I revel in it. Revel in the pain, revel in the revulsion – turn to watch her writhe upon the floor, caught somewhere in the midst of her own revilement and self pity, before turning and slamming shut the door. 

				[center]	 ********** [/center]

Lucius drew a deep breath of the bracing night air; the council was not far from his his secluded haunt on the moors, and there was something he found enjoyable in this otherwise humanely pedestrian manner of travel – a horse surging beneath his legs, obeying his will as he chose to exert it, the rush of air on his face, the faint memories of centuries so long past as to be nearing the point of oblivion. 

Punctuality, in all the space of time between, had never been his weakness, and so Lucius found himself lurking in the corner of the Council's waiting chambers, partially through his first glass of bloodwine before he sensed Seraphine's approach – his was a reverie not yet to be broken, however, and he did not at once acknowledge her presence, thoughts seeming lost in his memories of the evening's entertainment as the goblet spins idly beneath restless fingers.