#ofstrangevariety

[penniesfortheferryman]

"As beautiful as you are? It’s hard to think you have a bad side.” Kharon smirks at himself for a moment before he dips his head, “If that was meant to be a warning, then I should let you know that I don’t scare easy. Nor to I plan to be the receiving end of that ‘bad side’.” He looks back towards her, 

       “I’ve seen the worst of everyone, every day, for many, many years. There is not much that I cannot handle.”

@ofstrangevariety​ // closed.

[bastardsunlight]

the rite of spring

continued from here with @ofstrangevariety

It had all happened so fast. She, the princess of elfland—what was left of it, golden halls surrounded by one forest, instead of many, and that surrounded by human sprawl—the royal heir of Bethmoora, sister to the exiled prince, Nuada Silverlance, was now the prisoner, the bride of the night queen. As much as she was confined to the land below the surface with her people, at least there was opportunity for sunlight. Here, she was not so sure. Gemina was the avatar of evening, of shade and cool night breezes, of chilly, silvery moonlight and sparkling, diamond stars. They were beautiful, of course; they were nature, as was the sun, but the golden princess needed it, too. Would she feel it again?

She entered the room on silent steps, with all the grace of her ancient people, deep blue dress accenting her white skin and white and gilded hair, her strange, honey gold eyes roving over everything, mastering each detail, memorizing it, seeking she knew not what, heart filled with trepidation and just a tiny hint of… anticipation?

The icy contacted her flesh and spread through her veins. She shuddered. Wide mouth clamping shut, Nuala Silverleaf watched her captor with a rapt gaze, looking for all the world a young woman, though she was ancient even by the standards of her people. Ancient though she was, however, Nuala knew enough to realize when she was in the presence of something older. She inclined her head demurely.

“No, mistress; I am… quite content.” For her people, for their safety, for the security of their ever-diminishing borders, Nuala of the house of Bethmoora would have fed herself to any fate or fiend. They were so few and so weak. What choice did she have?

[biiteme]

x

@ofstrangevariety​

“And perhaps...” She reaches towards her captive, taking hold of the trembling hand and pushing it back to the woman’s side. “I could simply call you bait.”

Em didn’t exactly expect her the woman to fall to her feet with gratitude upon being rescued from Cinead’s doomed ship, but her current attitude wouldn’t stand. A reminder of the reality of her situation may snap some sense into her. “Or, perhaps, if you so wish to be free of my presence, my warm cabin, my clean clothes, you could join your dear paramour in the brig. I must say though -- my crew has fewer reasons to tolerate your presence than his.” 

Em releases Gemina’s hand, retreating to the opposite side of her cabin towards the mirror, where she begins pulling pins from her hair to allow red locks to fall across her back. “My name is Em. You may address me as ‘captain’.”

[manyimaginativemuses]

@ofstrangevariety

To say that Vlad was beyond pissed when he was successfully kidnapped by a group of vampire hunters would be a massive understatement. He assumed he would’ve been strong enough to take them but he wasn’t expecting the silver aerosol spray they made along with the silver chains to take him down.

For months upon months, Vlad underwent torture and experiments because it turned out the hunters were far more interested in money than killing vampires. They’d been contacted by a group of underground scientists who studied creatures like Vlad and were determined to figure out the cause of the vampire curse. And they had the original vampire handed to them on a silver platter.... literally.

The scientists took so much blood and so many tissue samples that Vlad thought he’d never have anything left when they were done. But all his thoughts in that moment were about escaping... and he got his chance when one idiot intern left the door to his cell open just a crack, giving him the opportunity to turn into a cloud of bats and slaughter the entire facility. He drank all of their blood to fuel himself before flying out of the bunker, determined to find Gemina again.

Because he had been underground in a facility lined with silver, he hadn’t been to detect Gemina nor had Gemina been able to feel him. He was terrified she was dead or that she had been captured too. But he felt overjoyed when he felt her energy.... and she was nearby. He flew as fast as he could, laughing softly when he realized she was still at the bookshop, landing hard with a thud when he reformed from his bat cloud. He was covered in blood that was both his and from his victims, fresh scars littered his skin that refused to heal, and he was clearly malnourished and exhausted. When he pushed open the door and heard the little bell ring, Vlad couldn’t stop smiling as he was FINALLY home.

“GEMINA!!!” He screamed, hoping she’d recognize his voice.

[iincantatorum]

@ofstrangevariety​:

I came here as soon as I got the news. Darling, what happened, how-” he ignored the pleas of the nurses that she needed rest. He was infuriated that he was not told sooner of his wife’s condition. As soon as he was informed by a servant, he wasted not a second more and dropped his tasks for the day.

[undeadunalive]

@ofstrangevariety​ l ✚

“I am a Doctor. Dr. Jonathan Reid.”

[ericbrandonrp]

"I just want to go live on a farm somewhere. A nice dog, maybe some cats, some chickens and goats.. We could sit by a lake and no one could bother us."

@ofstrangevariety

“...ye do realoise tha’ we’d have ta feed ‘em chickens an’ goats an’ we’d have ta ge’ outta bed real early ev’ry day an’ couldn’t leave ‘em ‘lone, either...”

“How ‘bout...a house by a lake? Dog - yes. Cats...tha’s somethin’ we go’a discuss.”

[obediencess]

for @ofstrangevariety​​

         He spoke of her flowing, flaxen hair, and Riccardo pictured the fine reams of silk that he had hand spooled on thick rods for the dye a lifetime ago. The seafarer wanted a noble portrait befitting both her bewitching beauty and her intellect, which was as indomitable as her will. He would pay handsomely for a portrait which united all these things. Riccardo accepted on merit of the lady in question. It was no longer about the payment, though Riccardo knew he required it. The desire to paint had become a necessity, it was his sole comfort in the unending solitude of the past century. The monetary gain was a mere practical consideration. He would need gold to book passage across the sea again, when his hunger for the Old World returned. He must fill his coffers from commissions that were more plentiful here than they had been in Rome, where artists could be found on every street corner peddling their paltry miniatures for a fraction of the cost. Here, there was true admiration for his work, and for the ancient spirit within which he painted. The life-like portraiture combined with a classical-baroque sensibility appealed to the children of this young orphaned nation. He admired them, these strange new colonial’s now their own masters, as much as they admired him for all the aged simplicity of his work. It was this that appealed to Cinead, too, as he ambled through Riccardo’s studio in an old gutted townhouse in New Jersey, his fingers near touching the fine faces of the few portraits he had brought with him from his beloved Rome. Would it concern the lady that she could only sit in the evenings? No, it would not. And how long do I have to complete the painting? That was indeterminate. Riccardo closed his petal mouth around any other question. It hardly mattered, in the end. He would complete the portrait, he would be paid, and no doubt Cinead would leave off with the lady and her likeness in toe. 

They made plans for the preliminary sketching, and then the other vampire was gone. Riccardo was left with the money to acquire fresh materials and no more, the rest promised upon completion. He had a freshly primed canvas waiting on the easel, his palette bare, but the pigments ground to begin the underpainting once he was satisfied, if he was satisfied, with his sketch. He had brought so many of the rich raw materials with him across the sea, and now the brine-scent was imbedded in the paint.  He smelled it in the pigment collected under his fine, glassy fingernails, a scent too faint for a mortal to detect, but strong to Riccardo, who overpowered it with linseed and the natural bergamot amber perfume that clung to his immortal, olive skin. The great parlour was entirely devoted to his work, littered with busts, hunks of stone in the midst of carving, sketches and references hanging on the walls, competing with the peeling, ala Anglaise wallpaper. There was no other sight that the house was inhabited. Riccardo couldn’t sleep in it, and so it was little more than a workshop, strewn with all manner of odd artefacts that served his painting and sculpting. 

There was but one mortal scene, a pastiche of a study, or to Riccardo’s mind, a studiolo. He had constructed a dais upon which to arrange the many backdrops for his portraits, and he had already assembled a writing desk and chair, as well as a number of instruments and rich fabrics for the purposes of draping. The woman, Gemina, would be the crown jewel among these. The youth was standing at a short distance from it all, head quirked, his keen verdure eyes moving slowly over the arrangement, when the door knocker emitted a sharp thud. He blinked, roused from his aesthetic contemplation by it, and by the shadow of a figure behind the thin glass pane in the middle of the mahogany door. He dove a hand into his vest to flip open the worn casing of his pocket watch. They were not early, it was he who had lost track of time. And why not? What was time to an immortal? Nothing. He shrugged his shoulders, loping steps carrying him to the door. He opened it, throwing it wide at once. “Good evening, please, please come, come in, both of you, please,” Riccardo inclined his head, his tight inky curls falling out from behind his ears only for both of his beringed hands to rise and quickly tuck them away again. His accent was thick, undeniably Italian, and it gave the intonation of his words a song-like quality. Already the corners of his lips were upturned in a warm, welcoming smile. “You had trouble finding this place, no? Perhaps only to me these streets are hard to find, my home was all built on such precise lines, Roman’s are never lost,” he offered lightheartedly, already sweeping them both into the studio. Once they had crossed the threshold he darted across it, leaning over the edge of the dais to seize upon his sketch board and charcoal. Riccardo’s gaze flickered immediately toward his proposed subject as she moved into the abundant flood of candle light that clustered around the canvas and the dais. Her hair burned gilt in the rosy glow cast by the candelabrum, and Riccardo admired it for a moment, already searching his mind for the perfect pigment.