@isolde-allard
“I’m a terribly private person, I’m afraid” the vampire primly admitted. She did know people in town, it was impossible not to after having made Lethe her home for several decades, but she wasn’t so sure she would call any of them a friend with the exception of Brynn. “But I will find someone”. No friendly bonds were needed to employ someone for a specific job, after all. Wesley’s question was a relevant one and one she had considered as well. “I don’t think so, no” she replied, shaking her head lightly. “The fires were still going on when my shop was robbed”. To her it made more sense to believe the thief had used the commotion of the fires to their advantage, aware that the police would be preoccupied, than the thief being the same person as the arsonist.
Isolde could somewhat related to the sentiment of returning to one’s home. She had felt it once, and part of her felt to this day that even though she had a home she wasn’t quite home. Lethe lacked much of the unique feeling of truly belonging, though perhaps with her brother here now that could change. “No” she simply replied, remaining silent for a few seconds afterwards. Her eyes darted down to one of the pieces of jewelry before she looked at him again. Beautiful and composed as she usually was, the emotion shone through her eyes regardless. “It felt like there was too much loss there” she said in a quieter tone. “Perhaps I should’ve gone back but I didn’t quite feel the way I do now about those that are gone. Death was… harder to process for me back then”. Their mother had passed in that house, Wesley had been mourned as dead, and their father had fallen ill and withered fast soon after her wedding. “Peter and Roger visited us in Germany from time to time. It just- it felt better that way”.
His words shook something in her, and she could almost feel his hurt as her own. And just like that she felt part of the motherly nature she displayed when they were younger rushing back, unexpected but not unfamiliar at all. Her hands moved up to cup his cheeks between them and offered a soft smile. “You were missed so dearly, Wesley” she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking a little. “We mourned you and your absence was acutely felt, I dare say by Roger and me more openly than Father and Peter. But they missed you all the same” she told him, her thumbs brushing softly against her brother’s cheeks. “Roger was the first to marry, if you can imagine that” Isolde said with a light chuckle and then went on to tell him how it had happened. That their brother had gotten a local girl pregnant and married her for honor’s sake. It seemed like a recipe for a disastrous marriage and for Roger to be a reluctant father and yet he ended up taking on every responsibility for his baby girl, and what started as mere companionship in the endeavors of being parents ended up becoming a very loving relationship between Roger and his wife, Beatrice. After their first daughter two more followed. “Peter did have the largest family, of course. Six children” she went on, telling him of the visits their oldest brother paid her in Germany, bringing along his wife as well as his four boys and two girls. Respectable as ever, Peter had made a fine family man and a more loving father than the Allard children ever had. And of course, she had to tell him that Peter’s very first son had been named Wesley. Roger had died first, which she also told him, leaving them younger than he should’ve, at just forty-six; while Peter had lived long enough to see his grandchildren and even his first great-grandchild, though as a man in his early nineties his demetia hadn’t allow him to appreciate the momentous event. All in all, yes; they had been happy. They had suffered, they had struggled, but they had lived lives that so many would envy. Including herself, in some ways.
“I did keep up track of them for a while” she mentioned, thinking fondly of her nieces and nephews “But it got… complicated. I never exposed them to the truth of what I became so eventually they had to think I was gone, and I had to let them go”. Immortality could never match with the mortal lives of others, after all. But given the descendants of their brothers, it wasn’t wrong to think what Wesley was thinking: they most certainly had family out there. “We’re on the same boat, you and I. I did think of them from time to time as well, perhaps to feel less… I don’t know, alone… or left out” she confessed, voicing out thoughts that she hadn’t shared out loud with anyone before, not since her separation from Tobias. “I feel a little less that way now, brother” the vampired told him with a subtle smile, though one that was undeniably warm in nature “And I hope I can give something like that to you as well, a certainty that you’re not alone. I’m just one person, not a large family of sons, daughters, nieces and nephews; but I’m here for you. I’m here for you always”.
“Why?” His question lingers for several seconds before he realizes the lack of explanation, and continues on with a sigh. “What makes it difficult for you to find people who are friends? You have always been the best of our family, you are capable of charming the pants off a priest.” His lips quirk, recalling a similar conversation in their youth; its blasphemous in the day, and the gasp from their siblings at the commentary had made him laugh. Wesley, who had thought the memories too buried to remember, is relieved that he can remember pieces of them. “I cannot judge, as you know, I was just...” Curious, he finishes silently, shrugging instead, allowing her the option of not responding at all if she wishes. He has no right to pry answers from her. “Ah, that is a good point. Whoever this is, they are an opportunist, which tells us precisely nothing.” Everyone is an opportunist after all.
Her response is short, and for a moment he thinks no is the only thing she will say. No less than he deserves for a question that is painful, even if he didn’t think so until it left his lips. Her eyes shone with unspoken words, and Wesley straightens, taller than her by a great deal, and his hand settles on her shoulder, offering what comfort he could. “They would not hate you for those feelings. You were no longer human, but you were... still human,” he says, fumbling with his words. “Wherever they are now, they know what happened and they know why, and they love you still.” Not what she is asking, but Wesley thinks its important to say. “I think its unfortunate that we have gotten used to death. That it... isn’t the same as it used to be, but how else would we get this far? Who would crave immortality then?” It’s no less painful, he thinks, but further away sometimes, like it’s another lifetime.
Wesley blinks, and in that time, his hand is falling from her shoulder, jostled by the movement she makes to hold his face. To comfort him, when he’s spent centuries carrying this grief and found himself... almost numb to it. Almost. Her touch is a sharp reminder of where he is, and how long it has been since someone knew him as she did. “I cannot believe I let myself think otherwise,” he admits. “When I died, and when I woke, I remembered thinking it was peace for the first time in a long while. No longer fighting, no longer losing, no longer failing. I had not understood what I was before panic set in, and even when I did...” Death had left a mark, had left him rattled enough to flee and he hadn’t been strong enough, or brave enough, or loyal enough it seems to counteract it. The weight on his shoulders, a regret too heavy for words, only lightens as she talks about family, as she tells him where their siblings went and how they got there. He blinks rapidly, and tears blur his vision. “He... named his son after me?” he asks softly, almost disbelieving. For the first time in centuries, he thinks of his brother as the good man he was, rather than the things that Wesley had allowed to cloud him for so long. “I’m... glad. So glad. I prayed they were happy.” Inadequate, but how else does he explain the bittersweet pain of hearing this life he could have been part of if he had just stayed? “I am relieved that between the two of us, one of us stayed. One of them knew them. Maybe this was meant to happen.”
The two are seated on the ground, backs against the display cases, but he can’t be bothered by a minor discomfort. “I do not know if they would have believed you if you had told them, they might think your teeth an eccentric choice rather than what it is.” Still, Wesley tries to imagine a world where their family knew. Where coming to Lethe meant not just finding Isolde, but finding the rest of his family, too. He leans his head back. “You saw what you could, and they will be glad you stuck with them, that you got to see their children and grandchildren. Maybe someday...” Wesley breaks off. He doesn’t know if he can bear to see Peter and Roger in the faces of their descendants, but after a moment he continues on with a sharp exhale. “Maybe we can find them, and ensure they are alright.” They needn’t speak to them, even if the idea of going so far and not saying anything feels strange. He shakes off the idea, head turning to face her and a smile crosses his lips. “I have been walking around numb for so long. You are a fool if you think you have not given me everything I needed to wake up. Wherever we go next, alone will not be part of it.”
