@counthakan
location: Hakan's Christmas Bash
notes: i do what i want
Maybe to those who didn't know him, this had generic Christmas party written all over it, but Ciro had watched Ezekiel grow up. He'd been made to listen as the annoying orphan prattled on about his dream party, how it'd include the biggest Christmas tree anyone had ever seen, and how everyone in the city would be invied. "Everyone?" the Crown would chide, then Ezekiel would just nod before the quiet judgement from the table silenced him. It wasn't as though Ciro didn't like him, but as a witch he hadn't respected him - Ezekiel was so different from the rest of them. Even when he was trying to blend in he shamelessly went against the grain, like it didn't matter, like centuries of tradition meant nothing. It was only in the months since Ciro had returned that he realized there was a part of him that envied the boy.
As Ciro had deduced, this statue of a man who'd remained perched at the head of it all was Ezekiel's sire. Grief was all the witch could see when he looked upon that silent stoicism, the outright refusal to partake or enjoy, yet he seemed to relish in the festivities all the same in his own way. A jacket that was too remarkable to be mistaken as anything but a possession of the boy who never knew when to scale something back. Had Ciro been a better teacher maybe all of this could have been avoided, but he'd failed Ezekiel, and where Ciro had failed, Hakan had succeeded. He'd reared the young vampire, inspired him, and steered him towards something promising.
Hakan had turned Ezekiel who had turned Marcella, a woman who was inherently tied to Ciro's destiny. The two men weren't connected by any means, not in any way that truly mattered, but connected they were just the same. Ezekiel had kept a room at the Amaranthus house, when he'd been turned his things had been packed away, when he'd returned they were put out again but among them Ciro had found some belongings that had mattered. There was a framed photo of Ezekiel in his youth, a big grin on his face even as he stood outside the orphanage. Letters that he'd exchanged with his living family in the states, one that he'd only uncovered in his middle to late teens. Despite the love his true family had offered him, Ezekiel was loyal to the Amaranthus: he chose the quiet discontent of the witches over the acceptance of human strangers because it was Neva who'd pulled him from the trenches.
It wouldn't have mattered to Ezekiel if Hakan had been cold, if he'd been cruel, if he'd been violent or mean. Hakan had saved him and in the young boy's eyes that lifted him into an unyielding faith. Loyalty and love that was worth more than gold. That was another quality that Ciro admired in the deceased vampire, because it was not one that Ciro had ever possessed. Among Ezekiel's things were an endless stream of designer clothes, Ciro might have sworn that the boy never wore anything more than once. Hedonistic and wasteful, the clothes were fit for donation... Some of them at least, Ciro would be lying if he said he hadn't kept a piece for sentimental purposes.
"I recovered his daylight ring, it's an Amaranthine signet." It had belonged to Ezekiel's father before him, and his father before him, and so on and so forth. The Urquharts had a very long, extensive line within the coven that went back over a thousand years, one that had seemingly ended with Ezekiel. As Ciro understood it Marcella had enchanted it for the boy when he was turned. "He would've wanted you to have it." Ciro extended the ring towards the vampire, "I have the rest of his things: photographs, scrapbooks, memorabilia, things like that. Should you ever wish to see them." He wouldn't take up any of the vampire's time, instead he left Hakan to continue his observation and his grief.
