Stranger to the Sun — duReve

[∴ Quinn]

HOW COLD IS THE HEART

"What about that one?"

Quinn gestured to a skinny, pale looking figure in the distance. His skin almost seemed to glow in the darkness of the night, visible from the fire escape of a nearby building.

"She knows him, but they aren't friends. He doesn't come see her very often, night or day."

"Just a 'nerd', then," Quinn whispered with a slow, solemn nod. Not a threat, but it was sometimes difficult to tell the two apart - especially when the nerd also had delusions of grandeur brought upon by the bloodsuckers of fiction.

The night had progressed slowly; though they had camped out near the Academy, a centre for supernatural activity of all sorts, the moon was not full and most vampires were in hiding because of the threat of the Breseis Coven. It was cold, but Quinn did not shiver through his thick suit, and Rain was wrapped up in one of his sweaters, cosy as she could ask for.

It was many minutes later that Quinn's eyes snapped toward the next being to travel the empty street. Pale. Handsome. Confident. A face that spoke of ages of haughtiness. He could not have asked for a better target.

"Him?" It was barely a question.

It was a long wait for his answer. He grew impatient, but he had to make sure. "She hasn't seen him for... a... a milleninum. A millineninum. Millynenny-yum..."

"Stay here, close your eyes, wait for my return," Quinn interrupted, already moving. Rain obeyed without question, an absent smile on her face as she closed her eyes and placed her miniature fingers in her ears without being asked.

He landed quietly on a pile of cardboard as planned, and bruised his feet as expected. Such minor injuries were barely notable, though, and he worried not about them as he walked briskly to the man he had seen. His coattails flapped wildly behind behind him, only just concealing a leather sheath that reached his knee.

He stopped ten paces before the man, and rooted his six-foot-seven, muscular frame to the ground. But it would not be his size that he counted on when things got ugly. His face was as set and emotionless as those he hunted, and it was clear that he, too, was no stranger to confidence. It was often only the vitality in his fiery eyes and the darkness of his skin that separated him from their kind, visually.

"How many lives have one thousand years seen you take?" he demanded of the man.

He had never been one for formalities.

HOW DEAD THE BODY

[/color][/blockquote]

[ajora]

( [size=3

[/font][/color] I HAVE NOT A SINISTER HEART[/size][/color][/font] )[/size]
[/color]{ [/size][/color]but a mind at peace[/size][/color] }[/size][/font][/center]

Seriously, not as planned.

Delacoix had been working with the Corporation for years. Many years. He was notorious for being relentless, and for getting it done. Hell, he planned an attack upon the Academy, which went quite smoothly - and he wasn't even there to lead it. Nobody questioned his ability to satisfy the Corporations' every little need. Except maybe Delacoix, as of late.

After meeting a pair of women, Delacoix found his world turned up-side-down. Lots of people say such things. "Love at first sight" and alike. You don't live twelve-hundred years and retain this sense of naiveness. Yet, he did feel it. Not love. Not need. But something more akin to his desire to rebel (cue the irony of one of these two women being named Rebel) against his own kind even more.

There was a time when Delacoix couldn't stand what he was. Scratch that. There was a time when he couldn't stand it, to the point where he had to be everything a Vampire wasn't. A beacon of hope for humanity. Self-sacrificing. Caring of each and every life that could possibly be saved. Such a life was shed in years past, when his efforts proved fruitless, and his actions, simply too impossible to be carried out in modern times.

Something was tugging these old ways back up from deep within.

Delacoix wasn't far now from the Academy. If Delacoix hadn't been on the point of epiphany, he would have been headed towards the training center, bow in hand. Instead, tonight would be spent walking the grounds, staring into the sky towards the various stars that chose to reveal themselves.

Or so he'd hoped.

Coal black eyes fell upon a towering figure, now clearly making its way towards Delacoix. It wasn't that the Vampire was short, because he was not. This man - human, by the scent of things - was simply huge. And he had a bone to pick with Delacoix. Lovely.

[/font]

"How many lives have one thousand years seen you take?"

The Vampire froze, not too far away from the mysterious man. His spaced out expression had not changed, yet it was clear that Delacoix was taken aback by his statement. How did he know how old he was?

"My how social greeting have deteriorated in the last century. I can barely recall a time when we used "good evening"." Delacoix looked impatiently upon the Academy grounds, longing to be anywhere but in the presence of this startling man, before continuing. "As for the lives I've taken... We could stand here for hours and discuss this. Judging by your boldness, of both posture and of word, you're no stranger to my kind, or the true nature of this world. I assume I could ask you the same question about your lifespan, and I'd wager you've killed more people per year than I. Yet, nothing I can say, or will say, will sway you to understanding, as you're set in your ways," Delacoix mused, resuming his pace towards the Academy once again, "so you'll most likely attack me regardless. If that's the case, get it over with, unless you're truly susceptible to conversation."

Delacoix was grinning now, as he set his sights upon the gate to the Academy grounds, not a hundred yards beyond the human. Something about getting closer to him made him oddly uneasy, but he truly wished things wouldn't get that messy. He was still wondering how he knew how old he was. And what his problem was. Cursing Vampiric curiosity, Delacoix waited for some sign of something going foul.
[/blockquote][/blockquote][/color][/font]

[∴ Quinn]

KICKSTART THE ENGINE

So the vampire was a talker.

Quinn gave warning out of some ill-placed notion of honour, and offered a chance for his targets to explain themselves. Usually they didn't bother, and his threatening presence was enough to send them on the offensive. He didn't mind. He needed no reason to kill the beasts, the fact that he gave them a chance to make some case against their death was purely an act of charity; it had nothing to do with his conscience. They were, after all, already dead.

However, they occasionally took the bait (if only to try to distract him and catch him off-guard), and he was often subjected to proclamations of innocence. "I have never killed anyone!" "I feed only from animals!" He usually didn't believe a single sour word of it, though he was known to show mercy, occasionally, to some fledglings, sending them off with a warning of just what would happen if they erred in their ways.

This one was different, though.

He did not attempt to lie. In fact, he tried to turn Quinn's accusations back on him. Normally Quinn did not like to attack the talkers first, instead trying to goad or frighten them into making the first move, but this one was asking for it.

"A life that is forfeit cannot be taken again," Quinn retorted, eyes narrowing. "I do not kill 'people'. If I can be said to have killed at all, it is only because I have erased from existence they who would kill those truly alive. Each life I take separates me from your kind, do not think to compare us."

As the vampire settled on ignoring the threat Quinn presented and continuing on his merry, undead way, Quinn set his jaw. "There is room for only one of us to walk away from here, bloedzuiger. If you do not wish for me to make the first move it would be wise not to ignore my presence."

WE COULD USE A LITTLE FIRE

[/color][/blockquote]