| Patricia/Paul - Summary/Braindump |
[Mar. 6th, 2007|08:44 pm] |
Note: I meant to stitch this all together into a single narrative, but it's been languishing on my hard drive for months and I simply can't be bothered. So you're getting a series of asterisked vignettes, instead. As long as you've pad attention to the past Paul/Patricia encounters, you'll have no trouble here.
Go figure, this involves Yvette, in a peripheral way, and is set several months after she left Paul. See Departure for the circumstances behind that ugly little incident.
( Long ) |
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| Berlin - 2A (Overtime - Paul's POV) |
[Aug. 12th, 2006|07:03 pm] |
I had been looking forward to meeting Patricia DeMontfort again. She showed an unusual strength – especially for one of her clan - when facing the Brandenburg Gate, and the hints made at her impulsive nature… well, it can be an entertaining mix. So I pursued an opportunity to see her again.
( again, a little long ) |
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| Berlin - Two (Overtime) |
[Aug. 12th, 2006|06:52 pm] |
The night after their first conversation, Patricia DeMontfort and Paul Viersan meet in an office building, overlooking the Pariser Platz in central Berlin. Paul’s façade is firmly back in place, the easygoing charismatic Ventrue entertaining a guest, making small talk as they find their way to a vacant office.
( longer than anticipated, so... ) |
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| About Rachel - I |
[Apr. 19th, 2006|02:16 pm] |
Rachel won't ever know it, but I never quite understood the fascination she had for me. I most definitely do understand the power I had over her. Exploring permutations of that power more than made up for her dour hypocrisy.
Yes, dour. I knew her for the majority of her life and not once did I see her laugh, or even smile. Rachel DuNoir was too preoccupied with duty and holy obligations to have a sense of humor. Her childhood, her family, her Embrace all conspired to make her an intense, dedicated, well-skilled and entirely humorless fanatic. How she avoided holy suicide, I don't know.
And I don't know why she maintained my interest. Wait, I know the superficial reasons - because everyone has a favorite toy, and security exists in predictable, repeatetive action - but there must have been more to it than that. Or am I just that simple?
As I've said before, Rachel wasn't much of a challenge in and of herself. I pushed her to what I knew was her breaking point and could stop short, every time. The challenge didn't lie in her threshholds, but in mine. I could have Embraced her in 1941, diablerized her in 1964, convinced her to abandon her fiance at the altar in 1996 - all with almost no effort on my part. I could have done all those things but tested my resolution to not do a certain thing, in order to be able to do another thing, years later. I dared myself to make the easiest, the most immediately satisfying choices, and then challenged myself not to. Even small victories are worth savoring.
I'm not a rapist - there are better ways to express hate - but I am a powermonger. I've never pretended otherwise. And to convince a dour little Puritan that there are some pleasures of the flesh that can be enjoyed even by our kind... that was satisfying. So satisfying that it entertained me for decades.
And yet she couldn't smile, not even then.
I've gone off on a tangent. Satisfaction might have brought the cat back, but it seems like such thin soup to me. I think I was waiting for her to fight back - hoping for it in a way. Why, then our relationship would have gone into new territory, found new challenges and choices to be made. But it never happened. I think that mindless respect for perceived hierarchies was bred a little too well into my favorite Caitiff.
Meanwhile, Yvette has not only taken up challenges, but cast them in my teeth. It's interesting and I'll have to think more on it.
Maybe I got addicted to that security of repetition that Rachel offered. When things didn't go well in the rest of my existence, I could always be secure of that I still had the upper hand with that woman. That would make her a crutch, wouldn't it? A prop for my ego. I never thought of it that way, before... Thank god she never realized it.
I think, however, that Yvette has. If I choose to bring her back. I've lost.
New territory, indeed. |
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| Vienna. |
[Apr. 19th, 2006|12:52 pm] |
I remember Vienna during the fin-de-ciecle. Such a glorious, desperate place it was. The Viennese knew that their star was in the descendant but had no idea how to accept that fact gracefully. The nobility, in particular, whipped itself up into a self-piteous, ennui-ridden frenzy - so much like the Toreador as to lead to accusations of undue influence. Stylish, memorable suicides abounded - culminating with the murder/suicide pact of Crown Prince Rudolf and his teenaged sweetheart. All the Brahms and the Strauss in the world couldn't put a pretty spin on that, oh no. Those two gunshots were the final nails in Vienna's coffin.
Callow and vicious as I was at the time, I found the place quite delightful. To die in the arms of a vampire! How romantic! How very gothic. And how conveniently it allowed them to justify their Catholic graves. I was happy to help them achieve their fantasies. I doubt I've ever had so many willing victims in close succession.
In general, killing was much easier in those days.
Nowadays, I don't understand what the Tremere see in the place. They cling to it for the sake of tradition, I think. It's just that sort of thinking that led to the fossilization - and ultimately the destruction - of the Hapsburgs and their ilk.
I admire the Tremere and their skills, but I believe they've lost their ability to make choices - unless they're absolutely forced to do so by circumstance - and when that's lost, a clan might as well bend its knee to another master. The rumors that the true master of the Tremere has a third eye in his forehead is just so much delicious irony. Wouldn't it be delightful if it were true?
My nights are somewhat short on delight at the moment. Yvette has managed to turn my philosophy against me and has forced me to abide by her decision to leave, lest I be proven a hypocrite and lose her in some other, more permanent way. I could summon her back with a phone call, with a thought, if I wanted to. I do want to. But she's right. I have to let her make these choices, or else it's just Rachel all over again, and the bloom went off that rose within a few decades. What I have with Yvette must last forever - or not at all. All I can do now is wait, and listen, and hope that she really can forgive me for what I did to her mind. I don't know how she remembered all of it, but that's spilt milk now.
She would have been so much happier if she'd accepted certain changes. I gave her what she wanted, just not quite in the fashion that she had envisioned. I have my reasons, but I suppose they don't matter now. If Yvette comes back to me, I rather doubt it'll be virgo intacta. A disappointment, yes, but not an insurmoutable one. As long as she comes back. |
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