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Post by Prince Amy O'Connor on Mar 27, 2016 19:28:11 GMT
The Gargoyle remained exactly where she had been through the entirety of Angel's speech. Had he told them his story only moments before, she would have moved to comfort him, to place a gnarled hand upon his knee and offer him a smile, as she often did for the Nosferatu that came through their little home. Yet, now she knew he was Tremere... A shudder passed through her body. He was taken from them when he was younger, he said. She could still clearly recall the day when the awful Sorcerers had swept into her home. They had stolen her from a perfectly normal family full of perfectly normal people and taken her far away, into her personal hell.
The experiments had turned her into something less than human and far less than vampire. She had no abilities to hide her face with shadows and blood. She was not allowed the freedom of the city because of her wings. She had struggled to earn even the slightest recognition as anything by Bernd's little "project," the Toreador's favorite thing to call her. Looking at the man before her, all the betrayal she felt towards his Clan showed in her eyes, even as her dearest friend and father figure stood from his seat.
It was only when he stumbled that she turned, instinct driving her actions more than anything else. Both arms wrapped around his too-slender waist, holding his form against hers. She knew better than to speak when he was talking to her, trying so desperately to calm her down. He tried to tell her that he was a victim, too, that he was taken from his home and his family, just as Angel had tried to say, but the words slid through a clouded mind. She had trusted him, just as she had blindly trusted the people that had beaten her mercilessly every day. Her fingers balled into tight little fists again, but she took a moment to bury her face into his crooked shoulder.
"I want to show him," she murmured, voice determined. She needed to know his reaction to what his people had done to her. "I need to show him what they do. If he isn't like them, he'll understand why everybody hates him. Please, Bernd, let me show him?" Blue knew very well that, if any explanation were needed, the Nosferatu would have to be the one to talk to him. She would be completely unable. Not only did Blue not possess the necessary knowledge to properly explain it all, but showing her body to anybody knew was a painful thing for her, indeed.
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Bernd
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Post by Bernd on Mar 28, 2016 0:53:35 GMT
Bernd could feel the tension in his little angel, he could hear it in her voice, feel it in the quiver of her delicate wing bones, could almost taste it in the air. "It's okay little angel. If you think that it is the right decision to show young Angel, then you would do so with my blessing." His bent and broken frame did not yet straighten. She was for all intents and purposes his crutch, especially in that moment. The anger that he felt, and had such perfect control over was not something that helped with his body, especially with his coughing.
He leaned over once again falling into another coughing fit, one so harsh it shook his entire frame. Slowly he'd manage to peel away from his little angel, his little Blue, and plop down onto his chair rather harshly, still coughing and sputtering. After a few more moments, his voice was again his, though it was much much softer. "Be gentle little Blue, and be cautious, you did right bringing the sorcerer to me. We are here in Elysium, this is not just our place of safety, it is everyone's." Bernd merely wished to warn Blue, not chastise her. It was going to be important, to both of them, especially if he were to spend any amount of time in O'Connor Manor assisting Lady Thorn.
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Post by Prince Amy O'Connor on Mar 28, 2016 1:08:34 GMT
Blue offered the Nosferatu only a nod of recognition, before she turned the entirety of her intense attention to Angel. Her sapphire eyes were alight with hatred, but beneath the flames of her negativity, he could see pain. True pain. She had been hurt, that much was obvious, but he was about to see what had actually been done to her. Unable to tell the story and expose herself, she simply reached down to grab the hem of the black fabric, pulling it unceremoniously over her head.
It fell to the ground, unnoticed, just as fifteen feet of grey feathers unfurled from her back. The noise was nearly deafening, sending the loose papers that decorated floor space of the apartment flying in random directions. They were majestic and, often, fully functional, giving her the ability to fly and be truly free. The flight feathers were spotted with little white dots, soft and blending into the grey, and making her look just like angels of the old tales. Yet, that would only maintain any sort of attention for a short while, even by those mystified. Her disturbing skinniness, the byproduct of starvation, was also easy to ignore.
The scars on her face paled in comparison to what was done to her torso. The sports bra she wore only covered her breasts, hiding the claw marks that ripped them open. However, he was able to see the puckered marks of a Y-shaped autopsy cut, once stitched back together, and the obvious line just beneath her belly button that told the tale of a child, stolen. Random cuts littered her ribs, and a large chunk of flesh had been stolen. Bone peeked out beneath graying muscles, long dead, though there was no blood from the wound.
Burns decorated from her shoulders down her arms, and as she turned the insides out to show him, he would see the straight, perfect cuts that had also been stapled back together, trailing from the inside of her elbow down to the middle of her wrists. The depth of the cuts made it obvious that they were not self-inflicted. However, he would see the single piece of unmarred flesh. Along the inside of her left wrist was a piece of pale, beautiful flesh, showing that she was, in fact, a beautiful girl beneath all those marks.
Numbers were tattooed there. Six simple numbers. She turned around, and he could see that the wings were grafted into her shoulders. The blades stuck out awkwardly, skin puckered bright and red as the skin tried to heal with the bones of the wings. It looked painful, to see the least. She moved her fingers to brush her hair out of the way, and he would see those six numbers repeated on the back of her neck, along with a bar code and the letters TZIGAN. As her hand fell back to her side, she flexed her back muscles, and he would be able to see the remnants of whip scars, as well as straight lines, burned into her flesh from electric falls, and at the base of her back, he would see the start of a checkered pattern, where she had fallen back into an electric fence. Over and over again.
Red tears burned at her eyes before falling down her cheeks as she showed him how ugly they made her. She was shaking and a sob ripped from her throat as her hand shifted out to delicately caress her feathers, the only good thing that had come out of everything they had done to her. She couldn't look at Angel. She just couldn't.
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Bernd
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Post by Bernd on Mar 28, 2016 5:11:23 GMT
Bernd let out a pained sound that couldn't be explained as a gasp or a sigh. It was somewhere in between, and while his little angel's scars didn't bother him in the least, it was the pain that he knew she felt, not only could he smell it on her, but by the bloody tears that marred the most beautiful face in his world. He closed those beady little eyes and bowed his head, it wasn't reverence, it wasn't any kind of disdain, Bernd was in pain, and it wasn't his own. He hated the Tremere, hated them in a way that Blue would never be able too, nor Amy. Each of them had lost something to the Tremere, he hadn't. He gained something from them, he'd gained SOMEONE from them, and that they were still after her, still chiding and insulting her brought him no end of rage.
The thoughts floating through his mind were not kind, nor were they particularly kosher. Bernd wanted blood, and were he younger and more able he would have burned the entire clan from their mountain home in an instant. Age and wisdom had taught him patience. The Tremere's day would come, and he would be there to watch them all BURN. His gravely voice rose very quietly behind the wings of his angel. "They did things to her that you cannot imagine Angel of Clan Mau, they hurt her, impregnated and stole from her. they broke her, they took away everything that would have ever made her a person. A human. They took it all away, she was in a cage, she was locked there for more of her life than I care to admit." Bernd stopped himself from coughing, with a force of iron will, though the pain was obvious in his eyes.
"They stole her from her family, at a very young age, for their own intellectual pursuits. With zero regard for her humanity, for her family, for her. She was an experiment, a piece of property. And while the Tremere revere their books and knowledge to the point of almost worship, people like Blue were treated worse than you can imagine. The pains that I have felt as a Nosferatu in my century on this green earth are nothing compared to the torments they lavished upon her." he took a deep, fluid filled breath and continued. "When I found her, she was in a basement, in a house abandoned to the wilds in Germany. Covered in refuse and rats..." Bernd shook visibly when he mentioned the furred creatures. They were after all, one of his greatest fears. "I pulled her from that basement, and found us refuge here. It is here that I owe my loyalty, and it is here that my little angel is safe Angel."
Bernd's beady little eyes opened as he dropped into one of his coughing fits, racking his body harder than the last only because he had struggled to speak for so long without interruption. It took him a few brief moments, but his fingertips, gnarled and bent, found the down of Blue's feathers, and there they stroked very gently. Not only as a calming measure for the beautiful angel, but for he himself. "You see, Blue is her own lady, but she is also my greatest treasure. The Tremere, the Clan that you yourself belong have wronged her savagely, and continue to do so. That affront is not one that I am able to easily abide. This is why they pay a premium when they come to me, and often why they are turned away at the door."
His fingertips continued their almost automatic caressing. "What you have suffered I am sure is painful, I am sure was cruel, for their cruelty is endless. But I cannot take your word in good faith young one. And that is not for lack of desire too, but I am old, I am broken, and I cannot risk my little angel to those monsters." He leaned over spittle dripping from his mangled lips to the floor as he struggled to catch his fleeting breath. "You have a chance to do what is right, you have a pass to enter my home because my Prince would never send someone she didn't think was deserving. But for Blue's sake, I cannot treat you as an ally." He gasped for breath for a few moments before finally finishing his statement. "But becoming an ally isn't something that is given. It is something that is earned, and when you earn my angel's trust. IF you earn my angel's trust." He corrected himself, those beady eyes turning again to angel. "Then we can speak of more..." Bernd leaned heavily on Blue then, in the softness of her feathers and the warmth of her kind heart Bernd felt peace, and it was a peace hard fought for and harder won.
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Post by Angel Mau on Mar 28, 2016 5:16:17 GMT
Angel was unsure of what was transpiring between the two as they talked. He didn't quite understand what it was that Blue wanted to show him. Bernd looked torn about the idea... Or did he? Angel couldn't really tell what the old Nosferatu was thinking at any given time. But as it appeared the two had come to an agreement Bernd went to sit. Angel watched him as he took a seat only turning his attention back to Blue when he saw movement from his peripheral.
With his attention on Blue she began to strip. Angel was about to turn his head out of respect when he noticed the scars. With his full attention on her she showed off each of her wounds and scars revealing all the damage done to her.
Angel looked over her while listening to Bernd explained what happened, his expression changing from shock, to sadness, then pity, anger, and finally sheer unaltered rage. His whole body was trembling. His nails digging into his plams, blood trickling out of his hands and onto the floor.
Angel attempted to speak but no words came out. Composing himself was not easy right now. His thoughts were a jumble of yelling, heated, hateful thoughts. Though none for the two in front of him.
"I..."
Angel took a breath.
"My hate for the clan that created me was no where near the level that I have for them in this moment. If there... I will help you get revenge for what they did. No matter what it takes, and this I will do for no charge. No favor. No strings attached. In fact, I will make this promise. You ask that I do no evil with the knowledge I gain from Sargon. I'll do you one better. I promise you that I will use the knowledge I learn to destroy all the evil within that clan if you should ask me of it. I will not let anything like this to happen to anyone or anything else."
Then Angel would kneel in front of Blue.
"And my promise to you my lady. If I am unable to keep that promise I will put my life in your hands should you wish to end me for tainted blood in my veins. As you say you can't trust me for my words but I will do whatever it takes, whatever you ask, to prove myself to both of you."
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Post by Prince Amy O'Connor on Mar 28, 2016 7:25:09 GMT
As Bernd told her tragic tale, Blue remained facing the Nosferatu, unable to look away from his beady gaze. Long ago, she had learned how to see the color in the darkness, to recognize the hints of brown that still existed in the kaleidoscope of black and off-white. It comforted her in a way that little else could, and she clung to that comfort. It made the scars, the hatred, and the agony just a little bit easier to deal with. He had found a way to see past that, to see the little girl she had been, once upon a time. He did not blame her for the experiments like she blamed herself. He gave her, instead, hope...
Hope at a real life, something she would have never had in the monstrous clutches of the Tremere. He offered her knowledge, academics, experiences. Her life didn't have to be pain anymore. She had more to look forward to when she woke than continued experiments, to the fear and the cattle prod. She could live and learn, and she would never be able to repay him for showing her that.
Yet, as he mentioned her pregnancy, Blue flinched. She closed her eyes tightly in an effort to force away the visual memories, her fingers rising to delicately trace the scar that curved just beneath her naval. She hadn't gotten to hold her child, and was kept ignorant enough as to not understand what, exactly, they were doing to her as her stomach swelled with "progress." She swallowed the cruel words and curses that pressed against the back of her lips, allowing him to continue uninterrupted. She was growing less and less aware of the world as it happened around her.
In fact, she was not aware when he stopped talking, nor when Angel started. Her face was still contorted into an expression well remembered by the Sorcerers that had captured her. Bernd, too, would know the look, but Angel was a stranger to it, just as he should be. When he made his way from his seat around her wings, still outstretched, to kneel before her, she startled. Her feathers ruffled and the bones in her wings snapped, an audible noise as they began to grind violently against her shoulder blades. It was a pain she was well familiar with, but the noise still made people flinch in her presence.
Sapphire eyes snapped open to stare down at the white haired man before her. Her breathing was unsteady, light, and full of fear. For a moment, her past told her what it was he was going to do to her, and she felt sickness deep within her stomach. Her muscles tensed in preparation of the blow, her legs straightening as if he were examining her. Deep breath, she reminded herself silently, and then followed her own suggestion. Deep breath, in and out. Her eyes immediately rose to Bernd as he finished speaking, as if asking for his approval. She didn't know if she should accept his offer, nor if she should respond at all. He was the one that handled the people. He knew how to.
She understood the importance of what he offered, and if Bernd told her to, she'd do it without a second thought. Yet, Blue was a kind person at heart. She did not like the idea of hurting undeserving creatures or people; it reminded her of what had been done to her and that hit a little too close to home. She was built to be a monster, to be the enemy of any and all Kindred, and of most occult oriented creatures. If she needed to fight, she could do so, almost mechanically, and she had yet to experience a fair fight that she hadn't dominated. Since her release, however, she only harmed the people Bernd directed her to, trusting him to know which were safe to attack and which deserved another opportunity.
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Bernd
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Post by Bernd on Mar 28, 2016 10:33:02 GMT
Bernd studied Angel with a rather cautious look on his face. He wouldn't tell the sorcerer no, nor would he tell Blue no, but the consequences of this night could have very long and lasting effects on his angel, and even he couldn't foresee what they could be. Far removed from the consequences of the future were the ramifications of putting their lot in with someone that neither of them really knew. When he spoke his voice was calmer, softer. "I would advise that you take some time to consider the promise the young Sorcerer has offered you." He held up his gnarled hand for a moment toward Angel, hoping to ease any transgression that he might think Bernd suggested with the suggestion of patience. "You are both young..." He coughed sputtering, it was getting more and more difficult for him to speak with the constant and agonizing fits of coughing.
"This is a choice that could effect you both for a long time to come." He paused, considering his words before he continued to speak, concentrating on exactly what needed to be said, and conveying it both to the Tremere and his precious little angel. "I would advise taking some time to think, both of you. Angel, consider what putting your sword in Blue's hand could mean." He gave Angel a very pointed look with that statement, then turned toward Blue."And my lovely little angel, you too should think about what it means to wield someone else's will as your own. Are you willing to accept the consequences of the actions he takes, if they are on your orders? Do you think that you..." Bernd coughed again covering his mouth with his gnarled hand as he curled over in his too plush chair. "Do you think that you know enough about the situation in the city to pass judgement, and not just for your own reasons..?" Bernd straightened then, as much as his mangled frame would allow.
"Or is it perhaps too soon to make a judgement like that? After all, and this goes for you too Angel, do you really know what it is that they are doing on that mountain, in their books and with their magics?" He looked from Blue to Angel then back to Blue. "I would not wish to burden your beautiful soul with the guilt of a decision made in haste, especially when we are considering the lives of others, no matter how we might hate them." And he did, he truly hated the Tremere Clan. Not only were they powerful upstarts with no real grasp of responsibility or their own power, they were reckless and cruel without reason. The old Nosferatu did not know why his Prince allowed them safety in her city, nor why they held the places and properties that they did, but he trusted in her judgement.
"Be wary both of you of your words and actions here." He sputtered a bit and it was very clear that he was tired beyond exhaustion. "I apologize to you both, I am unable to really assist you here. I have acquired my promises from you Angel Mau, and I will help you, but for your relations with my little angel, they are up to you both, and as I said, I would advise patience and more thought before acting." He'd lean back in his chair then, his beady eyes closing as his chest rose and fell, he was by no means asleep or unaware of the world around him, but his body had, as it did every night, betrayed him. He would of course stay up with Blue and continue her lessons should she wish to, as for the speaking however, he was resigned to doing far less of that this evening.
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Post by Angel Mau on Mar 28, 2016 10:45:46 GMT
Angel looked up at Bernd as he spoke. Shyly he rose to his feet and nodded at the old vampire. He was right, Angel made a rash decision to offer her something like that. But he didn't know what else to offer. He couldn't do anything about her past, however he was determined to give her a better future if it was at all in his power.
"I am sorry. I meant no disrespect or discomfort. However I will heed your wisdom and wait for her to decide."
He would turn to face Blue.
"I am sorry to you as well. I by no means meant to deceive you. Whenever you have come to a decision I will hear you out no matter what you decide. I can not take back an offer that was already given."
Angel took a breath a little bit better in composing himself.
"I have caused you both enough grief for one night and should you wish it I will take my leave. However if there is any more you wish to discuss with me I will listen. The choice is yours."
With that Angel would stand there awkwardly unsure of how to proceed until the other two had said their peace.
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Post by Prince Amy O'Connor on Apr 2, 2016 20:55:12 GMT
Blue nodded as Bernd offered his advice. He was so adamant about her being her own person, completely, and she respected that. She also knew that she could discuss it with him in greater detail later, when it was just the two of them in their little basement home, away from the wandering eye of this white-haired Tremere. A great part of her wanted to wait, to give him the benefit of the doubt and allow him to speak freely with her father-figure, but she wasn't entirely certain that Bernd had the energy.
As he left her side, Blue turned away from the stranger once more, fluttering over towards the twisted frame of her dear friend. Her wings tucked back against her body, hiding some scars from sight. She knelt at the side of his seat, reaching one hand up to delicately brush her fingers across his hand, sapphire eyes searching his face for any sign of his energy level. She did not bother to speak again. If anything needed to be said, she knew that he could do the talking from here on out.
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Bernd
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Post by Bernd on Apr 3, 2016 18:44:53 GMT
Bernd shook his lopsided head from side to side slowly, there was little else the old Nosferatu could offer to the white haired Tremere in terms of wisdom or advice, and it would be some time before he would speak to the Tremere again. They were not a clan he dealt with with any regularity, preferring that they stay sequestered in their mountain home, and away from his precious Blue. Why Amy had invited a viper into their nest he was unsure, he'd need to speak with her soon. While the boy Angel seemed honorable and reasonable, if a bit hot headed and brash, he was still Tremere, and deception was in his blood.
He let out a grasping cough and then sighed as it's racking pain eased a bit. "I thank you for the offer of privacy Angel. I will have to take you up on that offer, young Blue still has her lessons to attend too, and I fear I am too exhausted to be of anymore assistance." Berne remained quiet and still for a few more long moments before continuing. "I do apologize for the short meeting, perhaps we shall have another sometime in the future." Berne relaxed at last into his chair, looking far more at peace there.
"It's okay beautiful angel, I will be okay." His beady eyes opened as they always did for his little angel, and he smiled his crooked yellow smile, trying to reassure her. "See our guest out Blue, and be careful." He reached up patting her hand as gently as his clumsy hands would allow. He wished he and Blue could remain in their little basement homes forever. He was wise enough to know, especially in Nagasaki, with the Tremere so close, it was unlikely to happen, even less so with war brewing.
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Post by Angel Mau on Apr 20, 2016 0:14:28 GMT
Angel bowed politely.
"Thank you kindly for you assistance and patience. I will await for your word when or if you wish to speak to me again. Good evening to you both."
Then he would turn to make his way out of their home.
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