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Tweak says, "It's genius."

Armand (vagabond_child) wrote in mirage_rpg,
@ 2008-09-09 07:42:00

Entry tags:

armand, arrival, complete, day 14, toph bei fong

Day Fourteen
Who: Armand and Toph
Where: Along the beach, to start.
When: After dark
What: Armand arrives
Rating? This could be a PG-13 for descriptions of burning alive.
Status? Complete

The small televangelist who had somehow gotten a hold of the icon held it up, and Armand saw the very face of Jesus blasted into the fibers. Dora, her name was, but he didn't really care about that. She could have been anyone. The veil was the important thing. Just a simple piece of white fabric, but the face of the savior...

Gabrielle had gone down into hell itself, maybe as some sort of reaction to losing her son. She had been reckless, impulsive, since Lestat had pulled his disappearing act. And she'd brought the Veil from the very grasp of Satan. Armand couldn't stop staring at it. His mind slipped back more than five hundred years to when he'd been the one creating religious imagary. He could smell the paint. And then, to see that his best work was thrown in the mud when he was kidnapped, and he had failed. He hadn't protected the icon.

This one, though, was a million times more precious. A real relic. Not made by human hands. The sun was going to rise soon. Any sane Vampire would be safely inside by now. But though Armand felt the drowsiness of the coming day, he didn't seek a resting place. Instead, he stood where he was, on the steps of a church, and waited.

It had been so long since he'd felt like this, that there was anything in the world worth sacrificing himself for. So long since he was last filled with this religious feeling, this faith, this hope. It was overwhelming. But it left no doubt to him what must happen. He was evil, the Veil was good. Therefore, to sacrifice himself to the power of the icon, that would be a good thing.

His eyes started to hurt. The sun was starting to lighten the sky, though it hadn't made its appearance yet. It wouldn't be long. He looked to the East, waiting. Others pulled at him, told him to stop, but he pushed them away. Soon enough, they had to go into their resting places themselves, and left him alone. Only mortals would see him die. But, since it was to them that the world belonged, maybe that was fitting.

As the sun crested the hills and sent it's first rays shooting to the steps of the church where the vampire stood, he saw his first sunrise in over 500 years. How nice, that he would die in beauty. His skin started to smoke, and the pain shooting through him was unendurable. But he did endure it, and even somehow remained on his feet.

Something was wrong, though. Flames should have been shooting out of his skin by now. He'd been so sure his death would be quick. But the minutes passed, and he just smoked, blackened, but didn't burst into flames. His wild mind, crazed by the warm, early-morning sun, remembered the story of Those Who Must Be Kept. Put into the sun for a whole day, and they survived. He wasn't going to die. He was too old.

He fell onto his knees, screaming in denial. He'd come here to die! His sacrifice had been rejected. But not by everyone, it seemed. Maybe the sun didn't want him, but someone did. A burst of golden light shot out of the sky, illuminating the vampire, and when it lifted, he was gone. To a mortal watching, it would have just seemed another miracle. They had been quite common since the Veil had been brought to earth.

Armand, however, nearly passed out. An unusual thing for a vampire to do, but he wasn't fully himself from the sun. The light, he was sure, was God's wrath shining down to kill him after all. So when he found himself deposited onto the sand, his skin still smoldering and blackened, he was shocked. Was this hell? It really didn't look like hell. And it couldn't be heaven, not when he was in so much pain.

He'd landed on his knees, just as he'd been when he'd been back on earth, and slowly, he rose. He winced with every step. Already, his body was trying to heal, but the damage was extensive. He was still formed exactly as usual, of course, but his skin was black. It was nighttime here, and as he looked around, a few things became apparent. He was by the sea, and he was nowhere in North America. Even in Florida, it wasn't as gorgeous as it was here. And it just didn't feel right, somehow.

Where was he? Where had his sacrifice taken him? Who had rescued him? He didn't know, and, standing in one place, he looked around.

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vagabond_child
2008-09-10 01:30 pm UTC (link)

It must have looked odd, if anyone had been watching. They looked to be the same age. If anything, the angellic-looking boy looked slightly younger than her. And they were close to the same height. As she made her reluctant way over to him, the earth seeming to pull at her feet, he stood completely still, made no move. When she was in front of him, he looked deep into her eyes.

Slowly, very carefully, he raised a burned hand and let his sensitive fingers run along her neck. He had her. She was under his control. It would be so easy to just lean down and... but no. He was injured, and would surely drain her if he took her. Then, she'd die, and he'd have broken the rules already. It was a little soon for that, his first night. And he didn't want to kill her, for a very simple reason. He liked talking to her.

Gently, he withdrew from her mind, leaving behind a sense of happiness and contentment. It was a gift of his to leave these images, these emotions. It had been a long time since he'd bothered for someone who wasn't about to die. He stepped back and looked at her, waiting for the spell to break as he no longer maintained it. The knowledge of what he'd done, he left in her mind. She'd wanted to know, after all.

"I can also fly, and I'm immortal. I thought I could be killed but..." There was a pause, and then a slightly bitter laugh. "I cannot, I do not believe. Even the full light of the sun didn't end my life. You noticed I have no heartbeat. When I'm full of blood, I have a heartbeat that you would be hard-pressed to tell from a human's."

He tilted his head to the side and looked at her thoughtfully. She was an incredible person. He could have left, for he sensed she didn't have much more to tell him about Mirage, the welcoming part, but he stayed. And he hoped, strongly, that she didn't get scared and leave.

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rocksolid
2008-09-10 02:54 pm UTC (link)

It was good on his part that he'd left those emotions, as it was likely she would've been furious with him otherwise. Even with the feeling of contentment though she knew full well what he'd done and that she didn't like it. She also resented the fact that she hadn't been able to fight it either, and wondered idly for a minute if there was a way she could fix that. It was sort of like bending one's spirit, like what Aang had done to the fire lord, and if that was the case then there had to be a way to make herself strong enough to resist that kind of manipulation.

The idea of being able to fly didn't particularly appeal to her either. The ability wasn't as impressive as it might have been to others, as it wasn't new to her, and she was pretty adverse to flying anyways as it made it impossible for her to see. Being immortal was cool though, or might be anyways. Armand didn't sound all that pleased with it.

"As impressive as that trick was -- don't do it to me again." Toph said. She liked him, and didn't really have a problem with him being in her head a bit, but that would change very quickly if he used that power on her again. Toph might be just mortal, but she was a mortal that could have the earth encase and bury him hundreds of feet below the surface, and leave him to dig his way back out. She trusted that it wouldn't come to that though, she hoped not anyways.

"So what does an immortal vampire do for fun?" She asked, interested in him as well, not just the powers he had. Toph also wanted to change the subject and show that she wasn't afraid or intimidated by what he could do (even if she actually was a little bit.)

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vagabond_child
2008-09-10 03:20 pm UTC (link)

He smiled just a little as he read her emotions. She was spurting them off so strongly, he would have had to be less powerful than the newest of fledglings not to notice. He'd read her well, knowing that it would be a good idea to leave her with the feelings of contentment. He sensed her thoughts even as she thought them.

"Yes, beautiful girl, you likely could bury me, if you struck quickly enough and I didn't read the intention in your mind. And I could get out, and it would not go well for you once I had. But, come, enough of this. I don't want to argue with you. So I will agree to this. I will not use this gift on you."

He read her apprehension in her mind, but he didn't mock her for it, as some of his kindred might have done. He let her change the subject. After all, as someone who was so conscious of his own dignity, he knew what a careless word could do to that. And, again, he liked talking to her. If he annoyed her, she might leave.

"Fun? Oh, we do many of the things mortals do , I expect. We read, write, explore the world, love, hate... Lately, I have been enthralled with the world of the cinema. When I was made, we didn't have such things."

He had to think, actually, about what it was he did. Had anyone ever asked him about himself like that? Carefully, trying it on for size, he turned the question back around on her.

"And you, what do you do, as you say, for 'fun'?"

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