Who: Veno and Ash What: He's new, she's helpful. Where: Judenburg, Austria When: Tuesday night Warnings: Surprisingly little.
The Duke could still feel the intense burning in his chest, where he'd been stabbed, as if the poison had still lingered on through death and transition into this new, bewildering world and time. The manor was much the same, though where a portrait of his father had hung, there was an unfamiliar face there, and next to it, was a terribly large photograph of himself where he had his new painting hung in his own life. All the terrible machines were the most harrowing part - he didn't know what they did, or why they were there. He demanded that all methods of entertainment that required 'electricity' with the exception of his 'laptop' be removed from the manor, and he retired to the library, where he locked himself in, and settled stiffly in the chair of his desk, tapping letters out into this thing that seemed like a living book, watching as he was replied from the aether.
And it was there that he found this 'Ash'. He was incredulous when she said she could appear before him. Was she a devil? An angel? He was hoping that she was as kind as she seemed, and would be nothing like the terrible beast who had tricked him into the insatiable thirst for blood and flesh of women prior to his death. He closed his eyes as requested, but only for a moment, before opening them, and turning his head up to look past the desk, into the space between the shelves and his desk, worried what he might see there.