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 Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2022 7:16 pm
Time, one would think, would be the one thing that could be said to be on the side of a True Brujah. On the side of any vampire to some degree, really, but even moreso with those who had mastered the art of Temporis.
And yet, Eiran found, time only rarely felt like it was on his side, personally. So much of it was wasted, putting up the front required to disappear amongst the Rabble and ensure that his true affiliations were never discovered. Faking the passion that the imposters came by naturally, a performance that left him endlessly tired. But sometimes, he managed to find himself a reason to disappear, to go hunting through old libraries for obscurae, and the tales of Gods appearing at parties and rumors of powers shifting was plenty an excuse to go diving.
Besides, the vampire he’d talked to had described seeing someone that sounded all too familiar. And if Illyes walked the world, Eiran suspected—hoped, really, as much as he let himself hold onto such sentimental nonsense—that they might find a way to cross each other's paths.
For the moment, he’d settled himself in the forbidden section of an old magical library—a few time tricks got him past guards and wards both, and kept him hidden until well after everyone else was gone. Now, with a small magical light floating next to him, he perused the ancient spines of the books, looking for anything that might be of use.
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Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2022 3:55 pm
Since his awakening, Illyes had spent a very lonely existence, wandering the wretched world and wondering all the while whether he would ever find any of his true followers. It was difficult, because of how they needed to blend in, to even discern who, if anyone, was left. During his last stint in the waking world, he had begun the slow process of painstakingly choosing new followers, but it had been a tedium, and his selection process had perhaps been just a little too stringent.
There had not been many, in the end. A mere handful before he had fallen back into Torpor, leaving them to fend for themselves in a world where they were definitely not wanted. Freaks, who were able to control time, if they had enough time to actually learn the discipline.
He had indulged his curiosity a little since waking back up, with the vampire gathering that saw many Disciples in the same place, possibly more than he’d ever seen all at once. It hadn’t led to anything major, however, much to his own mild disappointment. And none of his followers, new or old, appeared to be present.
But word spread. Illyes had made himself known again just by showing his face. Whispers sometimes reached his ears, and he was able, with aid of his Discipline, to begin his hunt for his followers in earnest.
Which led him here. A place he knew quite well though it had been quite some time since he had walked amongst those shelves. Getting into the library was no great difficulty for him....he simply froze the guards, and the wards had not changed since the last time he had been here, so those were easy enough to deal with as well.
"Hrmmmm Prophecy of the Void....An interesting read." He stated, having crept up behind Eiran silently, leaning over his shoulder to read book titles in the dim light.
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2022 9:47 pm
Eiran did not startle, when the voice came from behind him. If he jolted slightly, well. It was dim enough that such foolishness might be between him and no one else. Truly, though, if he did not recognize the owner of the voice over his shoulder, he might have been disappointed in himself. There was no shame in missing the approach of someone with so great a control of time itself, after all.
"Illyes," he said, and a smile drew its way across his normally cool face. He closed the book, setting it aside. "I'd heard you might be awake again."
The rumors, then, were true. And Eiran's little flicker of hope had been fulfilled.
"Considering all that's been going on, I thought it might be worth it to peruse some of the books here. It seems we had the same idea."
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Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2022 10:13 pm
A slow smile crept across the Disciples face, one that did not reach the cold deadness of his eyes. It was more out of habit than any feeling of joy, just another device used to appear more like 'everyone else'. However, if happiness were a thing that he still felt, surely now would have been a moment for it.
He reached out with both hands to place them on the Elder's shoulders, smoothing down his jacket there and continuing along his arms.
"It is not books that have brought me here this evening, Eiran." He said, voice cool as the dusky moonlight.
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Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2022 3:58 am
Often, Eiran was glad for the vampiric gifts that had been bestowed upon him, but never had he been so specifically glad that his heart could no longer race and he could no longer blush. He was an Elder of the True Brujah—there was no need for schoolgirl nonsense just because Illyes was touching him.
A soft laugh passed his lips, and he closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. There were…much more interesting priorities to be had than words on a page that would be there later, after all.
“Oh? If not the books, what does bring you here?”
Perhaps there was a list of playfulness to his tone. It wasn’t often that Eiran got to feel as if he was having fun, though. A rare moment indeed.
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Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2022 11:09 am
Hands moved back up, stopping again at Eiran's shoulders to grip them, tight, but not too tight. Had he been the younger, more emotional type, Illyes might have been amused by even the hint of playfulness he detected in the Elder's tone. So, in response, he chuckled, a deep sound, a response dictated once again by how he thought he should react, and less about how he felt he should.
He leaned in so he was right next to the vampire's ear, and spoke into it.
"Why, you of course. It has been so long, Eiran. I am pleased to know you have not yet met a final death."
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Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2022 9:10 pm
Eiran felt a chill crawl up his spine at the sound of Illyes's laughter. He wasn't a fool--he knew that the years had changed Illyes, and that he wasn't the same man to whom Eiran had first devoted his heart. But the devotion remained, undimmed.
And so too did the attraction, the...baser desire that kept him at Illyes's beck and call. Love was all well and good, but ti wasn't what was immediately called up by laughter and breath on his ear.
"You flatter me," Eiran said. "Coming all the way here just to seek me out." He closed the book, slid it back onto the shelf. "I could never disappoint you by letting myself get killed, Illyes. Far be it for me to waste the gift you gave."
Or to fail to stand at Illyes's side.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:52 am
It was at that moment that it struck. A shockwave rippled across all of Faetasia, and Illyes gasped, his hands dropping from Eiran's shoulders as he took a step back, his shoulders hunched. His dark red gaze widened as he continued to step back, until he bumped into a table behind him, and leaned back against it, a hand going to its flat surface as the other clutched at his chest. Something inside of him, something attached to his very essence, felt as if it was being held taut, pulling, an agonizing feeling, as if it could potentially tear him apart.
He felt the snap, then, so suddenly it nearly dropped him to his knees. His tether to Caine, the one that made him one of his Disciples, was suddenly...gone.
And in its place a new calling, a tenuous connection to a New God.
"Did you feel that?" He asked, teeth flashing into a grin before he laughed, a genuine laugh. The entire experience had been such a rush, flush with emotions he had not felt in decades upon decades, and the effects of that still lingered.
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2022 7:10 pm
It was, for a moment, as if the world tilted on its axis.
Eiran staggered, glad he hadn't stepped too far from the bookshelf so he could lean his weight on it for a moment, but only for a moment.
Something at the core of his essence, Eiran knew, had shifted--had been torn apart and reforged. And if he had felt it--if it hurt him--
"Illyes," he gasped, and he moved to the Disciple's side, reaching out to steady him. If his heart could beat, he suspected it would be racing. There was something about that laugh, that grin—they felt different than what Eiran had come to expect. "I felt it. Are you alright?"
If his connection to Caine had been torn asunder--for that was the only thing this shift could have been--what might that mean for someone like Illyes, even closer to their progenitor?
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Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:46 pm
"I am fine. I am." He insisted, his eyes for once alight with something, glittering with whatever it was he had felt, if only just for a moment before it began to fade away again.
He pushed himself up, straightened his shoulders, and inspected himself to make sure nothing was amiss. He felt...odd, still. Like something was no longer quite right. It was an uneasy thing, like an emptiness he had never felt before.
"It appears we are under a new rule." He said. The grin had died down to a small smile, and the last lingering effects of what had just occurred slipped away like sand through his fingers.
Feeling something, anything at all had been such a wonderous thing for those few seconds, he nearly lamented the loss of it once more, but he held his tongue.
"What will this new God offer, I wonder?" He in a softer voice, speaking more to himself than to Eiran.
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Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2022 8:37 pm
Eiran nodded, slowly. It wasn't that he entirely believed Illyes was fine--it seemed unlikely that it was possible to be entirely fine after what had just happened--but he trusted that Illyes would say if he were harmed. There was no face to save, really.
"How interesting," there was a thoughtfulness in his tone, and his eyes flicked to the shelves--but he suspected there would be no guides in books for what was going to come next. "One of Caine's children, I'm certain." But which one? Torpor had been their goddess, the Clanned vampires, but none had heard anything form her in ages. Kindred was, as best Eiran knew, too much her father's daughter to ever rebel.
Which left one.
"Grendel," he said, under his breath. "...I imagine you'll be hearing from him soon."
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Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2022 3:11 pm
"Grendel" Of course. It made sense. "His presence was felt at the vampire gathering not long ago, as well as Lilith's." But not Caine's, which at the time had seemed strange. Had the son and mother been plotting together to overthrow him the entire time since? The implications of that were very exciting. History was being made, right in front of them! In another hundred years, new members of the clan could be reading about it in text.
"I may not wait that long." He said, "The loss of a connection to Caine has left me feeling...a little incomplete. Weaker, in fact." Ah yes, he could feel the diminish of his power now, and a pull towards the one who would be able to fix it.
"Lilith would have allowed him to learn the Disciplines, for him to be able to wrest Caine's domain away from him. He will have been to another plane of existence, and come back stronger, full of knowledge and power." Illyes's eyes gleamed again, though this time not with the giddiness of feeling too much at once, but with a thirst, for something that he'd always wanted but could not have.
"I will go to him." He decided. "As I am sure many others will as well. We can not afford to be weak, we are too few."
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2022 8:46 pm
Eiran nodded. He'd heard that the gathering had been quite well-attended; multiple Disciples, Grendel and his mother....ahh, how fascinating.
"I really am sorry I missed that party," Eiran laughed, dryly. "Seems as if ti really was the place to be. On the other hand, I do so hate social events." A soft sigh, and he took a moment to carefully look Illyes up and down, to seeif there were any signs of this diminishment in his powers. There didn't seem to be, but...well. Eiran couldn't help but be a little concerned.
"Truly a momentous day. It isn't often a new god wrests power from the old." To say the very least. "And in any case, little reason to cling to any foolish, sentimental attachments to Caine."
Caine, honestly, had mattered little to Eiran except as an object of historical study. Everything he understood of the old god suggested he was volatile, brutish, and hot-tempered. Not someone Eiran particularly found worthy of his respect.
(Not like Illyes.)
"Take care. I doubt he'd have reason to harm you, but his father hardly needed a reason to lose his temper, as I recall." Eiran shook his head. "I'd hate to have something happen to you, when we've just found each other again."
Silly. Full of sentiment that Illyes could not return. But....honest.
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Posted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:23 pm
Funny, that Eiran should mention sentimental attachments. Had Illyes the capacity to feel humor anymore, he may have scoffed out a laugh. As it was, what little emotion he'd just had alighting his eyes moments before had faded and died, leaving him with the same numbed gaze as he usually wore, though his lips were still quirked in a smile that seemed strange in how it did not match the look he was giving. "I only attended the party to see who was still around. To see if you might still be around." He emphasized that second part, gaze boring into the vampire who stood across from him. "I did not mean that I would leave immediately. I will go, soon..." He let his voice trail off, and his eyes blinked, slowly, as if considering something. "And whether or not he would wish me harm does not concern me in the slightest." No. Illyes had long since stopped concerning himself over such things. He had made himself virtually invincible, with all of the knowledge he possessed. " Eiran." He drew the name out, slowly, weighing it on his tongue. "Do you still care for me as you once did?"
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Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2022 7:01 am
Eiran was no fool. He knew that Illyes’s heart was frozen over by time, that barring what had just happened a few moments before, any emotional displayed were faked for the benefit of whoever he was speaking to—or for Illyes’s benefit, that he might make them more easily bend to his will.
Indeed, Eiran knew that his own emotions had begun to die from the moment of his Embrace. At first, the coolness had mostly been a facade, but as the years—the centuries—wore on, his feelings had eroded. All but a select few—there was still some joy in research and exploration and the finding of new knowledge, and, most importantly (to him, at least)—
His feelings for Illyes could easily become a weakness. Something that could be turned into a weapon against him. And yet, he held to them—kept them close and treasured, a last fragment of care that he refused to let go of. All the rest could wither, but Eiran desired to hold to that.
And so, the way Illyes drew out his name would have made his heart stutter, he was sure, if it still beat.
Perhaps he was naught put a useful tool.
Eiran did not care. He would let himself be used.
“Always, Illyes. I suspect only final death could sever that particular thread.” His smile was wry, but also a little sad. “But there will be no other for me but you.”
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