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Post by Rudolph Harvey Matheson on Jan 26, 2013 23:59:21 GMT -5
Someday this life was going to kill him.
If it wasn’t Sunny finally snapping and ganking him, then it would be his brain just giving out one day when he tried to think because he hadn’t worked it in a good long while. His mind was starting to atrophy without the constant struggle to survive and bring down the world as he knew it. Soon enough, he was going to be one of those brainwashed pets with nothing to do but dote (and wouldn’t Sunny just adore that). But that day was not today.
He was stuck waiting for her while she talked with her grandfather, which was completely fine with him in all regards. He’d gotten out of the house (blessed day) and was currently left unsupervised in a library. Although his first instinct was to pry around for hidden catches and things like that, this house was too full of people that might just inconveniently walk in on him while he was being a nosy bastard. Instead, he was amusing himself going through quite a few old volumes that were sitting dusty in the corner. Most were the biographies of newsmen, probably bought because the names sounded good (as he suspected most of these had been). He reflected on how the room would send the librarian at the camp into fits given its general lack of proper organization. He laughed. She’d been on the ‘do not touch’ list as long as he’d been there, mainly because he was quite sure that Sampson would have kicked him squarely in the ass for trying. Oh the heady days of being free.
He took one and settled into a leather easy chair, much more comfortable than the one in the camp library, and proceeded to read. A few pages in, he looked up and scanned the room. There was a bottle of golden liquor standing solo on a shelf. Surely a wee dram wouldn’t hurt, would it? He set the book on the arm of the chair and wandered over to check out the alcohol situation. He pulled out the stopper and took a whiff of it. Whiskey, and not the shit kind that people tried to pass off as good in these bottles either. No, this was the kind that deserved to be stored in a bottle like this. That, of course, meant that it also deserved to be drank. Smirking, he grabbed a glass and filled it to about two fingers worth of the alcohol. That would probably be more than enough for this afternoon dalliance in the library, he wasn’t truly sure how long the vampires would be talking.
He returned to his chair with the glass in hand and settled into the book again. There were worse ways to spend his days than reading and drinking good whiskey. Indeed, he could be stuck somewhere doing manual labor. Although, manual labor was a rather productive way of getting fit and getting into shape, but it was so damn dirty most of the time. He remembered being hit in the face with flying wood chips and being covered in mud from various activities. He’d been described as a diva to his face more times than he could count by Tessa, although that wasn’t far from the truth. And in all honesty, he was glad she hadn’t carried the opera metaphor further as she could have easily followed that up with words like prima donna. That would have not been appreciated.
It was official, he liked this room and when he helped the few remaining humans overthrow the vamps and take back their world, he was going to have one like it. Indeed, that would be the life, wouldn’t it? Turn the current system on it’s head and take it all in. Someday, he assured and reassured himself, this would happen. Else what would be the point in filling his little notebooks with musings on destroying the system and sticking them in with stolen supplies of food for the camp? There wouldn’t really be one, would there?
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note: he's only allowed to give her a backbone >.>
words: 677
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Post by char on Jan 27, 2013 1:19:02 GMT -5
 [style=font-family: times; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: lowercase; color: #989898; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;] 641 WORDS FOR Rudya tad crappy, I is sorry, will get betterrrrrrrrrrr DREAM [/style] | [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #6d6d6d;] [style=padding: 10px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; height: 475px; overflow: auto; color: #1e1e1e;]Sometimes she couldn't breath in this house, sometimes she hardly thought she could continue on like this. Once more she had been subjected to Justine's hate for her, hate that she hadn't thought she'd done anything to provoke. And yet there it was. She'd burst into tears this time, escaping from Justine before the girl could do more than bruise her arms, call her names, make her feel worthless. She wanted to find peace, and she wasn't getting it here, that was for sure. But what could she do? Nothing. She could do nothing. Go to Lucian? The man scared her half to death, and she'd already been told if she went to Lucian she'd regret it. And yet if she didn't Justine would make her life hell. Until she was gone or dead.
That thought brought another sharp gasp, and she paused in the hallway, pressing a hand to the wall and covering her mouth with the other, her eyes squeezing shut to try to get herself under control. How had it ended up like this? She hadn't done anything to anyone, she left others alone, she just wanted to be by herself. And now she was here with an owner that scared her to her core, and a fellow pet who was bound and determined to break her down completely, beat her down until she ultimately gave up in the only way she could now. Forfeit her life to escape the harsh cruelty that Justine dished out to her. Never in her life had she had to deal with this, sure she was the quiet girl who liked to keep to herself and read, but no one had taken such an avid dislike for her. And no one had ever said those kinds of things to her before.
She gathered control of herself, wiping her eyes and running a hand through her hair, sighing quietly, glancing down the hall and continuing on her way. She needed to get somewhere quiet, somewhere she wouldn't be bothered, somewhere that she felt safe. Somewhere like the library. The one place that she was most comfortable. Hopefully Justine had decided she'd had her fill of harassing Charlotte today and would leave her in peace, all she wanted to do was find a good book, curl up next to the window and maybe take a nap in the sun. She'd found some books that she was rather fond of, books that she hadn't ever read before, and books on the subject that kept her sane, history. Those were the books she loved the most. She loved learning about the past, almost preferring it over the present.
Of course her present situation wasn't something that many would willingly put themselves into. A pet for a, in her opinion, scary vampire, harassed by someone who she thought she'd be able to rely on. But no, Justine felt no comrade-ship with her just because they both had similar situations. She shook her head, she needed to stop thinking about this, she needed to stop going over everything that happened. She wiped at her eyes again, knowing they'd probably be red, and she sighed, opening the door to the library and slipping in, closing the door and turning. And freezing at the site of Rudy in the room. She hadn't expected anyone to be in the library, Lucian was with his grand-daughter, Justine was off doing something. And she had come to find peace. But instead she found this man, drinking Lucian's whisky and reading.
So she simply assumed he must be someone important. "I hope you don't mind me being in here" She murmured rather quietly before heading to the other side of the library, intent on finding a book and ignoring the man. [/style] |
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Post by Rudolph Harvey Matheson on Jan 28, 2013 15:50:43 GMT -5
Then again, there were very few reasons that Rudy wasn’t dead yet. Actually, there was only one: Sunny. She’d snapped him from the jaws of death and disfigurement at the hands of the Trackers. True, most humans were brought in and normally sent straight to the auction after a little bit of light interrogation. The vampires knew that he was trying to undermine them, they knew that he was tight with the leadership at the camp, and they knew that he knew the location of the camp. And what was worse about the entire situation was that he knew that they knew that he knew all about the entire mess. Of course, one didn’t become loved and adored as a freedom fighter by giving away all of the important details. No, that was a sure way to get yourself killed and killed quickly. He’d managed to withstand what they threw at him, not even answering with his name. But he still felt the icy gaze of the head Tracker on him as he sat under the lights, starved, bruised, and a little bit mentally abused, all things that would heal in time and leave him looking no worse for wear. It was a little bit perverse that the department only caused superficial damage, but then again, that was how they made their money, sending out pets that might be broken in some way, but looked as perfect as the day that they walked in to the citadel.
His mouth had been shut for a long time after that with the desire to keep himself to himself.
Now, that wasn’t so much the case. He was recovering a little better than could be expected or than he had hoped to, but it wasn’t complete. No, when he had the chance, he was going to help bring this empire to the ground and let it rot. There was no amount of hot showers or chocolate that were going to change that one eventuality. He had to believe that someday he would be free again and that someday he would be able to help someone else overcome their demons.
He was deep in the book and shallow in the whisky when a younger woman entered, looking frayed around the edges and about ready to... well, have an emotional outburst of some kind if he was completely honest about it. He shook his head at her comment. “Not at all. In fact, I’m sure that you have more right to be here than I do,” he said with a slight smirk. Oh how Sunny was going to rage when she found out that he had been drinking her granfather’s whisky, living like he had never been brought into the world of being a pet. There were some perks to the job, and even though she got mad, sometimes it was worth exploiting the little luxuries that were just laying around to have a better moment in life. If not for exploited luxuries, trips to this damn house would be practically unbearable. There would be no point in sitting around and trying to pretend that everything was alirght when it most definitely was not.
He watched the girl for a moment. She moved without confidence, like every step was going to take her closer to some inevitable end. It was a pity, really, that no one had ever told her that there were good reasons to stand up for herself in this world. She moved and he caught sight of bruises on her arms, clearly from being grabbed too hard. Perhaps that was why she was in h a state. “Who gave you those?” he asked, motioning at her with a closed book. His journalistic curiosity and general distaste for pointless mistreatment of others was starting to show. He really was going to get himself killed one of these days.
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notes: >.> serious rudy
words: 645
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Post by char on Jan 29, 2013 23:22:12 GMT -5
[style=font-family: times; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: lowercase; color: #989898; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;] 507 WORDS FOR Rudyshe refused to talk anymore than that. I am sorry. Good luck Rudy. DREAM [/style] | [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #6d6d6d;] [style=padding: 10px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; height: 475px; overflow: auto; color: #1e1e1e;]When she had given herself up to the trackers she hadn't expected this. Of course she wasn't exactly sure what she had expected when she allowed them to take her back to the citadel, but she certainly hadn't expected this. Harassed, bullied really, by her own kind. She had assumed that she and Justine would have gotten along, they both were pets, they both didn't particularly enjoy the title of pet, but she was wrong. Oh, was she wrong. Not only had Justine taken it upon herself to beat Charlotte down with harsh, terrible words, she'd also been cruel enough to lay hands on her, leave bruises along her arms, she'd even hit her head upon the wall trying to get away from Justine, she could still feel the bump.
She had slipped into the library and was halfway to the opposite side when he answered, though she felt a bit of confusion when he mentioned that she had more right to be here than he did. It took her about three seconds to figure out that her first assumption was probably incorrect and to sift through possibilities. "Lucian's grand-daughter's pet right?" She frowned briefly as she sad it, the only indication that she didn't particularly like what she'd said, before turning back to hunt for books. She was bound and determined to find a good book, settle in front of one of the high windows, and read. Perhaps even nap if the sun's light could get her to relax a little bit. A nap might not be a bad idea.
She'd just been in the middle of reaching for one of the books when his voice stopped her, tensing completely as her eyes slide over to the bruises on her arms. She could still feel Justine's hands gripping her arms, hear her voice yelling at her, degrading her. For no reason. She pulled the book off the shelf and hugged it to her chest, still facing away from the man. "No one" Her reply was soft, and obviously a lie. But she couldn't tell him the truth, she wouldn't. Wouldn't risk it somehow getting back to Justine. Because who was here to protect her? No one, she couldn't do it herself, who was she kidding? She could hardly fight, she spooked so terribly easily. And Lucian...well..she didn't know what to expect from him. It wasn't a hidden fact that he intimidated her, and she..well the fact was, if she told Lucian it would only get worse.
That was how it worked. She risked a glance over at him, it was quick and seh immediately found a chair on the other side of the room, settling down into it before he could say anything else. She wasn't going to talk, she didn't want to, she wanted to sit here, ignore the slight throb in her arms, the small headache that lingered within her head, and read until she either fell asleep or was found by Justine or Lucian. [/style] |
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Post by Rudolph Harvey Matheson on Feb 3, 2013 18:06:10 GMT -5
“I prefer 'her human companion,' but yes, pet would be the socially accepted term,” he said with a frown, “I take it you’re one of Lucian’s?” He hated the word ‘pet,’, simply hated it. A pet was something like a dog or a cat, something that you couldn’t have an intelligent two way conversation with. It was a fancy name for a slave. Although he was treated decently, there was no promise that it would always be that way. Someday he’d be old and grey and there would be no good reason for Sunny to keep him around, since he was ninety percent sure that he was kept around only for his looks. He wasn’t going to lie and say that he wasn’t vain, but the number of times she’d had him take off his shirt clearly pointed to the fact that she didn’t want him around for his brains, prodigious as they were. He was quite sure that he was just eye candy that could cook. It wasn’t a bad life, but there were also times where it simply wasn’t a fulfilling one. Back before he’d been caught, he’d thought that he was at least a thorn in the side of the government, even if the pets didn’t have the chance to read his paper. And if they did get that chance, he’d hoped that he was at least making them think. Now he just felt impotent and unable to change anything.
He sighed. He’d told that lie (or a variation on it) more than enough times in his life. Back in the heady days of college, before the world had slammed down, there had been moments in the swim team and fraternal intiation processes where he’d been choking back the truth and telling the whitewashed lie that every member before him had used. “Well, if you keep telling yourself that, the situation is never going to get better,” he said. There had been a definite end to when he had needed to tell that lie and a bond forged between him and the others who had told it at the same time, but this was most likely a very, very different situation and one where having a backbone would serve the girl well. There was never a good reason for pointless suffering and even some of what he’d gone through during his pledge days and his first year swimming had been fairly pointless, but he’d seen the purpose there. He saw none here.
He glanced over to where she was sitting, she didn’t seem to want to to talk about it. Too damn bad, she’d come into the wrong room with the wrong journalist and now he was curious. If this was abuse of a human by a vampire, it was illegal. If it was abuse of a human by a human, well, he’d figure some way to spin that into bad publicity for the monarch. Even though journalistic excellence required that he be unbiased, he was beyond that now. There was no way for him to be unbiased in an era where there was so much that was wrong and so little that was right. And every now and then, he even gave into the temptation for a little bit of yellow journalism from time to time. Everything that had been right in the journalistic establishment was falling apart, he was evidence of that. But in an era where the simple fact were ignored by so much of the population, the only way to fight fire was with fire. And so, he’d become a master of propaganda, working on the subconscious rather than the conscious, trying to turn people by playing with their wants, desires, and needs. So far, his one man force had not been enough to topple everything that was wrong with the world, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop trying.
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notes: woo! his first yoda-ing of her.
words: 645
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Post by char on Feb 19, 2013 13:51:02 GMT -5
[style=font-family: times; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 1px; text-transform: lowercase; color: #989898; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;] 661 WORDS FOR RudyWOOT POST FOR YOU DREAM [/style] | [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #6d6d6d;] [style=padding: 10px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; height: 475px; overflow: auto; color: #1e1e1e;]Had she had an actual backbone she might have spoken the thoughts that flitted through her mind at his response to her question. That it didn't matter what he preferred, the plain fact was they were pets and nothing more, but she didn't, she already was tearing her gaze away from him and scooting to find a book and a chair to curl up in at his light scolding, nodding her head in response to his question. Charlotte wasn't one to speak what was on her mind often, especially not to someone she had just met, someone she figured she'd already irritated with her words. So she was going to leave him be, settle into her chair, open the book and begin reading until night fell and she could make her way to her room, hopefully without running into Justine. Of course chances of that happening were slim, her other option was to find Lucian, seek safety with him, or at least as much safety as a vampire could offer.
She was unwilling to talk about the bruises that lined her arms, Justine had been very very clear in that if Char ever told someone about them she would only make her life a living hell. She shuddered as she remembered Justine's exact words, telling her that she'd rip her tongue out if Charlotte ever told anyone. And there wasn't a doubt in Charlotte's mind that Justine would do that, she certainly appeared capable enough, already leaving several bruises on her arms, and gave her a pounding headache where her head slammed into the wall. She frowned at Rudy's words, falling silent for a very long time while she considered them, curled up in her chair with the book resting in her lap. She doubted admitting that Justine hurt her would do anything. Justine would just come after her with a vengeance and frankly Charlotte didn't want Justine hurt, not because of her. As long as she kept her mouth shut, did what she was told, she'd be fine, she'd be just fine. Right? Right, she would. Her eyebrows drew together as she thought about it and finally she sighed.
She wouldn't tell anyone, not at the risk of infuriating Justine. Because she couldn't be saved every time, Lucian wouldn't be around all the time to make sure Justine didn't touch her, Charlotte wasn't too sure that Lucian cared all that much, and even if this man sharing the library seemed to care enough, what could he do? No, she was better off just keeping her mouth shut and hoping Justine was content with her continued silence. "It doesn't matter" She murmured lowly, opening her book and flipping to the first page, she wouldn't tell him, there wasn't a reason too. She was alone in this, she didn't have anyone and she doubted the man sitting across the room from her could do anything to help her. Tell Lucian maybe. And then Justine would just come find her, this time with murder on the mind. Justine already made it clear that she didn't care about hurting Charlotte, she doubted Justine would think twice about killing her.
The stark realization that she was truly and utterly alone hit her then and she frowned, finding herself unable to concentrate on the words written upon the page. Even if she hadn't really relied on others before the war, at least she had her family and a few friends she could count on, that she could fall back on and find comfort with. Here? Here she had a woman who hated her for no reason, a man..vampire who called her a pet and used her for her blood, Charlotte was utterly alone in the world and the thought made her crumble on the inside. She forced herself to start reading again, even as the tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. She wouldn't cry again, she couldn't cry again, she wouldn't. [/style] |
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Post by Rudolph Harvey Matheson on Mar 4, 2013 15:20:04 GMT -5
“It always matters, very rarely do things change because someone sat there and took what was doled out to her,” he said, sighing. Some people and their damn refusal to make things better for themselves. It got under his skin. There was very little that he could do about that, though. He was the kind who fought to get himself exactly where he wanted to be and to make himself into who he wanted to be. The process of self-improvement and situation improvement were always at the forefront of his mind. Even though he didn’t have much freedom in the classic sense of the word, there was one thing that would be perpetually free: his mind. He wasn’t going to be chained down to the intellectually just because he was metaphorically chained in the physical realm. Even Sunny couldn’t manage to pull that one off. That, combined with his side project of redirecting food to the camp, was what kept him ever so mildly sane from day to day.
For some damn reason, some instinct had kicked in and was telling him that he now had a project. Namely, it was the girl across the room from him, so scared and seemingly broken that she wouldn’t raise a hand to defend herself. She wasn’t Ghandi, she was just another pet in the eyes of the vampire. True, her owner would get in trouble for killing her, but would it be more than a slap on the wrist? He doubted it. Even though the vamps said that they wanted their humans well, he doubted that the humans were that important. Why? Humans were always reproducing and even if the virus caught some of them, there were still plenty that could be raised to be good little blood bags. He feared the day when all humans were cowed, just a food source. And the girl in front of him, well, she seemed to be an indicator that the day he feared was not too far off. It chilled him to the bone. All that work, all the fighting, all the times he’d stuck his neck out, and now the humans were starting to be docile? It was unacceptable.
He sipped the whiskey, eyes trained on her, most likely making her uncomfortable. Good. Comfort only led to complacency and complacency was one of the first steps down the road to hell. He was going to get her to realize that there were things more important than books in this world (even from the distance he was at, he could feel the eyes of the librarian in camp mortalis trying to bore a hole in his soul for that). A grin spread over his face, an idea forming. He got out of the chair and headed to the walls of books, looking for two biographies in particular. Ghandi and Guevara, two different men, but two powerful leaders who brought about the end of oppressive regimes.
Looking over the shelves, he prayed that his intuition was correct, that Lucian was so sure of his leadership that he would leave the biographies of revolutionaries in plain sight. This wouldn’t be the first time that a member of the oppressing class did something dumb like that. Reading, it was one of the greatest tools against opression and books were the weapons that started the war. He let out a chuckle as he found both of them, nearly hidden, like the journalism books Rudy read. This would be the beginning of a fantastic day.
He walked over to where the girl sat and put the books in her lap, trying to get her attention away from the book that she was currently reading, something that looked like escapism. “You’ll never escape through fancy. Read these,” he said before returning to his book and his chair. What could he really do if she was trying to resist him? Admittedly, her refusal to take action for herself was frustrating him enough that he wasn’t capable of actually being charming at the moment, but there were more than enough ways that he could get her to see the world from a different point of view. After all, he was a journalist and sometime propagandist. If he couldn’t swing her viewpoint, well, there were very few people that could.
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notes: not exactly a nice yoda, but oh well.
words: 717
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