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Post by davis on Feb 20, 2013 13:24:35 GMT -5
This was an era where things were confused. They were confused because people couldn’t see the forest for the trees or the wall right in front of their faces. Davis cringed as a youngster tried to walk out of the distillery and ran smack into the support beam holding the door. Damn cell phones, they really were a danger to everyone in more than one way. Then again, Davis considered everything more complicated than a toaster to be a threat to humanity. When he’d first set up shop, he’d looked through the catalogs of the few places still producing distiller’s equipment and been shocked at the sheer number of electronic whosits and whatsits that they were trying to sell him. Even speaking with the reps, he’d been astounded, there were so many electronic things to do what had always been done by the tongue in the past. There really was no substitute when it came to checking quality for the simple sensation of taste. Bad was bad and good was good. He was trying to beat that into the heads of his young assistant distillers, although he treated them more like apprentices than anything else.
But, despite all of that, there was plenty to be seen and enjoyed in this modern nightmare of a world. He was quite sure that had he not been hiding from everything for the last few decades, he’d be comfortable with it. But now, given the sheer number of innovations that he missed, well, he was so far behind that he would probably never catch up at this point. And so he lived, blessedly, in house he’d stripped all but the most basic lights and simple electronics out of. His distillery was much the same. What he’d tasted of most of the modern alcohols, well, they left something to be wished for. He wanted to imbue something more to his and if that meant making his young assistants char and prepare the oak barrels he used for aging. He had vintages sitting, waiting for years to be sold. He wanted nothing but the best and if that meant moonshining and selling young rums for now, that was fine. They were still better than that shit in the stores.
He ran a hand through his hair, looking around the distillery. It was in good enough order that he felt fine leaving it in the hands of the assistant distillers. He pushed the door open into the bright new world of technology and metal and left the one he’d managed to make out of wood and old fashioned sensibility. The new world still bore living in and it wasn’t all bad, even though every face that he passed on the street seemed to be involved in something digital, interacting with what he only understood as a vast web of information existing in a dimension where you couldn’t actually touch or reach it, only access it from the terrifyingly compact computers that everyone in this era seemed to have.
He walked through the center of the city. Despite being a functioning member of society for three years, he was still sometimes awed and amazed by what was possible in the modern era. It was the kind of thing that he had never really expected to see. Some days, after particularly confused or harrowing dreams, he woke expecting chamber pots and wood and coal fireplaces, what had been standard for such a long time in his life. It was an amazing experience waking up every day in a world that had practically nothing in common with those dirty old years.
But there were times when it all got to be too much and he had to go sit somewhere where it was still a little old-fashioned and one of the places that still reigned was the park. Parks, as they were, hadn’t changed all too much in the last couple of centuries, although they were no longer solely the spaces of the rich and mighty, a nice change from the more aristocratic days of old. He stood on the green, watching the wind shake the leaves and the sun slowly setting over the western horizon. There was something so calming about this.
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notes: effing finally, he behaves for me
words: 701
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Post by Isadora Mariah Diardo on Mar 2, 2013 23:03:13 GMT -5
She really was growing tired of the stable hand, really it wasn't like his job was hard at all. Bring the horses in at night and then give all of them their grain. Not too hard to do at all and she was a little pissed that the boy couldn't handle that. Not only that but he had left the latch on Comanche's gate open and her dun stallion had opted to take a late afternoon jaunt through the surrounding area. She'd been at work when she got the call that the boy had lost Comanche and she'd nearly lost her cool. Comanche was her prized horse, her only horse, and he was now lost, roaming somewhere and now she had to go look for him. She'd picked up his trail, it was easy to see where he had been when all you had to do was touch an object and you could see the past.
She had a headache though, she was trying to fine tune her affinity to pinpoint the location of her horse. She was working oh so very hard to bring up only what she wanted, only the past few hours worth of past visions and it was taking its toll on her. She usually didn't use it so much, not like this, and if she did not find Comanche soon she was going to either get a bloody nose and end up knocking herself out or she'd have to go about it the usual way someone who lost a horse went about it, ask anyone if they'd seen the huge dun beast. The sun was starting to set and she really did not want to leave him out all night, he could get hurt oh so very easily and she wasn't very trusting in that anyone who found him would take care of him properly. He also was a bit head-strong, he needed a firm hand and if you didn't assert yourself he'd walk all over you. Something Isadora learned very quickly when she bought him as a two year old three years ago.
She had a lead rope coiled around her shoulder, her riding boots over a pair of rather nice jeans, a thick jacket covering the tank top she'd worn to work. She hadn't had time to change into anything else, only pausing to throw on the riding boots as it'd be easier to tramp through the wilderness in those than in the heels she'd worn to work. She reached out a hand as she passed a light post, cringing slightly as a throb echoed in her mind while the scenery changed ever so slightly, brightening a bit though there was nothing but the wind blowing leaves. She clung to the vision until there were distant sounds of hooves connecting with pavement and she turned her head to watch the tall dun horse make his way almost arrogantly past the light post, towards the park. She let the vision go, lifting a hand to her head as to ease the ache ever so slightly before pressing forward. The park was just ahead, the green must have attracted the beast.
She frowned as she moved into the park, he had to be around here somewhere, she wasn't ready to try another vision, her head still pounded slightly from the last one and she winced when her phone went off. "Is he back?" She immediately questioned the person on the other end of the conversation and she sighed angrily as she got a negative response. "Then why are you calling me?" She had paused in her journey, her gaze scanning the area in search for her horse before they landed on a man not to far away and she, begrudgingly, decided to ask if he'd seen a large ass horse running around, probably prancing around like he owned the entire place, damn horse. She hung up her phone without hearing the reply to her question and she stalked over to the man. "Excuse me, have you by chance seen a horse anywhere?" She didn't quite care about the redundancy of the question, nor did she care if he thought her crazy, she was bound and determined to get her damn horse back. Tag: Davis Words: 713 Notes: She really wanted to come play and..well she's chasing a horse, it amuses me. |
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Post by davis on Mar 6, 2013 16:27:25 GMT -5
Standing in the manicured garden, Davis’ mind did what it best: wander. For some reason, he remembered straggling through California and watching that damn Lola Montez dance her infamous spider dance. Whatever else the papers said about her, the girl had some gams and she knew how to use them. Was she really Spanish? Well, he’d be the last one to say otherwise, but he was the last person that should be judging where someone was from, he was missing one of the biggest clues to who someone was. Being able to talk with absolutely anyone had its distinct disadvantages, namely that unless someone looked like where they were from, he really couldn’t discern one nation from another. She looked Spanish, but that was just a look. The Spanish had, after all, done a fair bit of world invading and native subjugating, just like the damn Brits and Americans. So that was no real factor, was it? Forgetting that language was a barrier for everyone else had nearly gotten him in trouble in a few wars, talking to the enemy. He sometimes had ended up realizing and remembering that on the other side of the guns and the wire there were people, not just Nazis or Krauts or Redcoats. It was sobering and sober was not something that he particularly enjoyed.
The thing that marvelled him about the modern world was that it was so seemingly permanent. Sure, some humans might be fighting with all that they had to stay independent of the brave new world of vampires, but the new world felt stable when he walked through the city. He might wander again, give into the habits built in over nearly half a millenium, but he could come back. To be able to return and use the same name, why, that was a miracle in and of itself. Over his life, he’d slipped between Davis and James more times than he cared to count, always staying one step ahead of humans who might catch onto his longevity and kill him for the secret. Davis had always been his favorite, even though it was his life’s most ill gotten gain. James just never had the same ring to it, at least to his ears. What would have happened if the real Davis Monroe had made it across the Atlantic all those years ago? Well, he certainly would have been more boring than the improved specimen. He probably would have died with the rest of them in the colony and been one lost soul among many. This Davis, well, at least he was interesting. Had he regretted that fateful day when he woke up and said ‘I think I’ll head to America today’? No, not for one minute. He had certainly done more to change the world as Davis Monroe than the original Davis Monroe ever would have.
His moments of reverie were broken when a rather loud whinny came from behind him. He must clearly be going insane. No one in their right mind would just ride up behind a man like that unless this was the Wild West and someone was trying to shoot him in the back. How did he know that? Experience. Jump enough claims on drunk, tired men and they soon got the bright idea ‘t’kill’im’dead’ in the parlance of the time. Hallucinations. Were these just another affectation of age? He sighed and turned, half expecting to see Calamity Jane atop some ghostly horse. Instead, he just saw a horse, tossing his head and prancing a bit on the grass. Must have been an escapee from the stables. Davis took a moment to laugh at himself before walking over and ever so carefully catching the refugee horse by the bridle, muttering under his breath the whole time as the horse shied and finally figured he’d just let Davis come grab him. Bridle in hand, however, Davis realized that he had no way of actually securing the horse, save for shoelaces and his belt and none of those would actually work. He sighed and patted the horse on the nose, saying, “I remember six horsepower meant six horses and all those horseless buggies were gettin’ laughed off the streets.”
He stood like that for a moment, him and the horse, until, in an ever so Davis fashion, he grew bored of the thing. There was, however, a flower garden nearby with low but sturdy fences. Remembering the fences of the settlers he’d come with, he pulled the horse towards it, sometimes having to coo at the thing to get it moving. Horses really were the prima donnas of the animal world. After a few minutes of coaxing, he got the horse through the gate and in among what would be flowers in the spring. He leaned for a moment before returning to near where he had been, this time sitting on the bench. Wouldn’t you know, but a few minutes after the ordeal of getting the damn thing in the garden, a woman came up, obligatory lead rope in hand, asking if he’d seen a horse. Quickly, he toyed with the idea of asking her if it was a horse of a different color, but decided that he’d rather keep his head on his shoulders.
“Yeah, he’s in the flower garden over yonder,” he said, his speech apparently in a holding pattern around the end of the nineteenth century. He didn’t know if she’d be able to tell, he never knew how he sounded to others, part of the problem with omnilingualism. For the longest time, he’d failed to keep up with language and it showed every now and again, whether he sounded like a frontiersman or the Elizabethan actor he’d once been. He tried, he read to understand the modern cadences, but sometimes there was just no getting around the fact that he was old, older than most, and he’d learned to speak in a time and place far removed.
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notes: ... idk.
words: 994
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Post by Isadora Mariah Diardo on Mar 11, 2013 19:08:41 GMT -5
She was worried, she wouldn't lie to herself about that, especially since she had put so much time, money, and effort in creating the bond she had with the spirited stallion. Not many people could handle him as easily as she could, and that fact was because she had been dedicated to showing Comanche that she was someone that he could trust. And now some idiot let him out and the dun stallion was on the loose and she was having the hardest of times trying to find him. She was starting to get a headache from the repeated use of her ability, with the attempts to fine tune it and hone in on certain points in the past to help her pinpoint the location of her horse. God she was going to kill this kid, and right now her moral side was too tired to even war with the edgy side. It was one thing to constantly be forgetting to bring Comanche in at night, at least then she'd be able to do it when she got home from work, but to leave his gate open? Comanche was highly spirited and an open gate was an invitation to run wild.
As he was doing right now while she vainly tried to find out where he was. Her last vision led her to the park, where she saw a man resting comfortably on the bench. Forcing down her irritation she approached him, eyes quickly taking him in before she forced a small smile on her face, asking him if he'd seen a horse wandering around. She expected a negative answer, or some sort of snide or sarcastic remark, but she was pleasantly surprised when he answered positively. Immediately her head turned to said flower garden, sighing with relief when she spotted the dun stallion lazily munching on the sparse vegetation there. "Oh thank god" She murmured lightly before making her way over there, not having forgot the man, she simply needed to make sure that her horse was alright. She slipped through the gate, murmuring quietly to the stallion who had tossed his head at her approach, but calmed down as she reached out and ran a hand over his neck.
Once she got the lead clipped to his halter she led him out of the make-shift pen and back to the man, relaxed now that she had Comanche with her. "Did you get him in there?" Comanche didn't particularly like others handling him, probably one of the reasons that the idiot boy didn't bring him in at nights, and being a stallion he was a bit high strung. The fact that he let this stranger bring him into a pen surprised her. Not that she wasn't happy that he had gotten her horse somewhere he couldn't hurt himself, it was just a bit surprising that someone besides herself or some of the trainers at the stable could get him to cooperate. "Thank you, so much, I've been going mad looking for him" She smiled lightly, reaching up a hand to scratch lightly against the horses cheek. "Knowing him he'd have gotten himself into some trouble" She still needed to get him home, put him in his stall and get him his grain. And then fire the stupid boy who had let him out in the first place.
She murmured lowly to the stallion as he snorted, tossing his head up and showing his irritation by side stepping, which she easily followed, keeping the lead tight, a hand resting against his thick neck. "Easy now, there you go, settle down" She murmured before her attention turned back to the man. "I really don't think I could thank you enough, I'd probably have spent the entire night chasing him all over the city" And she had no doubt that she would, Comanche wasn't afraid of cars, he'd been walked in parade's before, he had no trouble walking in busy streets. Though by himself he might have gotten a bit anxious and ended up hurting himself. So she was very thankful that he had been stopped before he could go into the city. "My names Isadora Diardo by the way, I'd really li-" Her sentence was cut off as Comanche decided to test how much free reign she'd give him while she was talking. The tall horse threw his head up again, prancing to the side and Isadora had to let him have a bit of the rope lest he pull her arm out of her socket.
She frowned, her hand tightening on the lead, her words light, but with a distinct stern tone that had Comanche's ears flicking forward and he settled down a moment later. "Sorry about that, I'm sure he's going to think he can get away with anything now" She kept her gaze on Comanche though, a hand patting his neck as he lowered his head and he stood complacently at her side. "I'm sure he gave you trouble, how about a drink or something to make up for it?" There. See? She wasn't a horrid person, she wasn't immoral or cruel, she was polite and kind. She would most certainly keep telling herself that too, until the day came that the truth was revealed and she might have ignored the man completely after getting what was hers. Because she wasn't nice, nor was she much for appeasing others. Isadora didn't appear to know that though, so she'd keep deluding herself for as long as she needed too. Tag: Davis Words: 938 Notes: here you are. |
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Post by davis on Mar 22, 2013 15:10:07 GMT -5
The woman was flustered, that was easy to see. Damn animal running away and all was probably the cause (Davis personally didn’t see the point of keeping horses around unless they were needed for something, but that was just bias). But beneath all of the frustration and what appeared to be an unhealthy dose of exhaustion (the young just worked too damn hard in his opinion), she wasn’t all that bad looking. Actually, she was pretty good looking, she would have put half the women he’d met in his life to shame and given the rest a good run for their money. He could, at any point in time, appreciate that kind of beauty. Pursuit of pleasure and beauty had gotten him to this age, after after. Then again, it had damn near gotten him killed as well, especially when he tried to sleep with married women. Only recently had the bullet wounds he got running through Mexico faded past the point of visibility. Would that stop him from doing the same in the future? Most likely not, he was many things, but prone to learning from his mistakes was not one of them.
He nodded at the first question. He most definitely was not born yesterday and he definitely remembered the days when horses and mules outnumbered cars, and before that outnumbered the railroads. If you needed to get anything moved quickly on roads, you needed to need to know how to deal with either beast, whether they were bad tempered or not. Then again, he’d never been one for owning stallions. In a bored day reading a history book, he’d learned of how damn weak the big destriers of the knights of the crusades had been against the mares that their opponents rode. From then on, he’d owned solely mares and geldings when it came to horses and those only when necessary. But he’d never kept a stable either, just what he needed for the transportation of him and whoever he was with at the time. The closest he’d ever come was owning a pair of riding horses and a brace of carriage horses when he was married and living in New Orleans. Oh the glory of those years. but they were gone now and he didn’t rightly think that he needed much beyond the two feet attached to him for getting around the city. He also wasn’t the type to just go for a ride, so stables really weren’t his cup of tea. But despite all of his objections to the animals, he could handle a horse well enough, given that he had a few centuries of doing it under his belt.
“Weren’t a problem at all, a horse is a horse. They’re all a little jumpy and a little dense sometimes, just gotta ‘em calm and not be scared that they’ll crush you,” he said with a shrug. Mules, that was a damn different story. He’d owned both at different points in his life, but the mules had consistently been more reliable for him, if a little bit of a trial at times. Unlike donkeys, they were a little more assertive in their personality; and unlike horses, they were smart and able to think through a lot of situations that the former was not. A horse was good enough, better than a donkey by far (better than a damn hinny too, he remembered the day he’d been promised a mule and gotten a hinny, the vendor regretted that decision for the rest of his life), but it was no mule. Horses had a tendency to fall in the mountains, whereas his mules had never so much as misstepped while he was prospecting in the mountains of Colorado and California, or when he was headed down to Mexico to work the gold mines there.
“Nice to meet you, Isadora. I’m Davis Monroe, and that all depends on the drink,” he said, smirking a little bit. Davis versus the alcohol, it was a lifetime battle. It wasn’t about addiction and it wasn’t about abuse, it was about art. There was a certain challenge to making high quality alcohol, a touch that many of his underlings sometimes seemed to be missing. Then again, they didn’t have centuries of tasting under their belts and they certainly didn’t understand what he meant when he groused about how much the distilling process had changed. What he now sold as seconds and crap had once been the best rum and whiskey that money could buy. Now, with all of the fancy filtration and all of the newer techniques, he’d probably get run out of town if he produced colonial style rums, complete with hints of lead from the tubing. But, as ever, he loved the challenge of making it better and small batch distillation provided enough of a challenge to keep him entertained, at least for the time being.
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notes: he's so damn strange.
words: 806
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Post by Isadora Mariah Diardo on Mar 28, 2013 11:24:09 GMT -5
She relaxed once the stallion was in her position, a breath leaving her as she led the dun out of the fenced flower garden. Her attachment to horses stemmed from the same place that her distaste of people did. Her affinity. Even though her affinity stretched to objects as well as people (which included horses) most of the time the things that happened around them were so very uneventful that she had no issue with controlling her affinity. When something spent the entire day grazing in a field, well there wasn't much to cause a strong vision to overcome her. So while sometimes it was possible to garner a vision from one of the equines it was a rare occurrence and therefore she liked to stick around the beasts as much as she could. They were easier to deal with as well, a horse's actions could be predicted people however were a completely different story.
She was pleasantly surprised that this man had taken it upon himself to get the horse into a fenced in area. Comanche was a big guy and he could be intimidating to some people, so it was always nice to see someone who wasn't afraid to help out and get the horse somewhere he wouldn't hurt himself. She smiled lightly as he spoke, she had to agree, sometimes some of the horses she kept around could be dense. There wasn't a doubt about that. But she adored her horses regardless. "Dense doesn't even begin to cover this guy" She smiled as she patted the horses neck once more, fondly. She did adore her Comanche, only because she had done so much with him, she'd bought him young, trained him herself, and she was even thinking about taking him to a few shows.
Isadora's little battle with Comanche was brief, he tried to throw his weight around and she quickly responded with sharp, stern words and a tight hand on the lead. He settled down very well after that and she leaned easily against his side. Now that Comanche knew he wasn't getting away with anything he'd be a good boy, at least for Isadora. She smiled lightly as he offered up his own name, and then her eyebrow raised. "I definitely don't have anything fancy, especially not at the stable" She shrugged lightly as she tugged on the lead, causing Comanche to raise his head from his search for grass. "But you'd be welcome to whatever I have" She smiled lightly. Though her reasoning for inviting the man who'd caught Comanche back for a drink was not what another might think.
She was doing it solely so she wouldn't rip apart that stupid boy when she got back. Isadora would never resort to violence, especially if someone was standing right there. She wasn't like that, at least she liked to pretend she wasn't like that, and having witnesses around kept her in check for the most part. Because god forbid she do anything that could endanger her reputation as the polite, if not a bit strict, woman who owned the stables. The one that wasn't overly kind, but just enough to be placed in the friendly category, someone you could approach and would help, but if you had a first option she wouldn't be it. She was quite comfortable with sitting just inside the friend range that she wasn't quite the most popular person around, but she wasn't someone others disliked. Why her image was so important to her she didn't quite know, she just knew she didn't want the inner beast out anytime soon. Tag: Davis Words: 606 Notes: sorry it's so short, she's being fickle xD |
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Post by davis on May 21, 2013 21:30:01 GMT -5
Blessings of being a vampire: long life, long experience, and the blessing of being able to survive almost anything. And as such, one rather stubborn stallion was little enough problem on the grand scale of things. There were bigger and scarier things than a horse. There were wars and hunger and all of the things that he had spent a good portion of his life protesting by living in a commune away from the modern world. It had been a technology free zone and horsepower had been measured in actual horses. Sure, the life wasn’t easy, but there had been something very nice about that. He’d grown up in a hard world. For all of the theater that came out of it, Elizabethan England wasn’t something that was all that easy. His father had been a hatter and had he not been infected with the vampire virus, he would have grown into a hatter and gone the way of his father, stark raving mad.
“Tends to be a trend with horses,” he said with a shrug. Not a fan, not a fan at all. He’d dealt with the damn things long enough that he knew how he felt about them. A few hundred years and you become stuck in your ways. He’d rather it was a damn mule, smarter little shitheads anyways. The only use for a horse was to make a mule and that was where their usefulness ended. If it was possible to have one without the other, well, that would make him incredibly happy and wouldn’t that just be grand?
“Who am I to say no to a beautiful woman offering me a drink?” he said with a grin. This was, well, Davis in a nutshell. Alcohol and women just led to one thing: trouble. But was that really a problem? Not at all. He’d lived through his fair share of it and only had a few scars to show for it. Women and rum, women and whiskey, women and tequila. The combinations were practically endless and pretty much fantastic any which way they were arranged or combined. Women in their own right were beautiful, like the one standing before him (although he did have some questions about her sanity, the whole horse issue being at hand), and so was alcohol. So it only made sense that the two together were a fantastic combination. Ahhhhhhh, the stories that he could tell about such combinations.
“Lead on, I am but a humble follower,” he said, making a leg and motioning towards the exit of the park. If it wasn’t immediately obvious to the casual observer (which it likely was), Davis was a little bit prone to the dramatics from time to time. He’d been an actor in his youth, loved for comedy, and he’d lived for it. From then on, he’d been playing his every part in the world as he moved through it, coming to embody Davis Monroe more than he had ever really been James Hatter. True, he’d gone by his original name from time to time in the New World, but for the most part, he’d been Davis. He’d married under that name more than enough times and, well, it was just his name. Sometimes, he couldn’t even remember why he’d been James in the first place, but then he’d wake in a sweat from a nightmare of himself, English and dying of mercury poisoning. It was a fate he had been spared by the affliction that had driven him from his family home and his apprenticeship.
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notes: spaz the second
words: 592
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