Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 14, 2017 13:29:41 GMT -5
"Yes, really," Costin said, taking another sip of wine. "Just women for me, please." Try not to sound so much like you're ordering at a drive-thru when you say that, Costin, he told himself. He would never have admitted that she definitely had him mostly figured out, but...well, she did seem to be not too far off the mark with most of her statements. Except for the ones about girls. What was he supposed to say to girls? What was he supposed to say to this girl?
Also, why did he ever listen to Mordred?
"I certainly can't claim to know of all the crushes currently cast in my direction," he said, "I can really only speak to the ones I hope are out there, and...well, you can't show all your cards before the hand is played, can you?" (Could you? Costin didn't play cards, but that certainly sounded accurate, anyway.) "At any rate, I like to focus on the things that are in front of me right now." (Except for the times when he was fixated on becoming a vampire, and the uselessness of human interaction, and how stupid human hobbies were, so...all the time). Think, Costin, think. What would he want someone to say to seduce him? That thought sent a shudder down his spine, and it was all he could do to keep from grimacing.
"Where are you from?" he blurted. "That is, where do you get your...clearly superior taste in wine? You're quite right that this isn't anything outstanding."
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 14, 2017 17:25:45 GMT -5
So he dug women and couldn't possibly be bothered to keep track of them all. Lorelei had to giggle at that. Costin really was just like someone stepped out of one of those cheesy novels, wasn't he? Darkly handsome, self-possessed, quite lonely, secretly in need of a good hug, everything poured right there. He was also clearly trying to deflect attention onto Lorelei, and she could feel herself beaming a little at the sudden attention from someone who was quite attractive in an objective, pretty face sense.
"Oh, didn't I mention that?" asked Lorelei, tilting her head. "It usually comes up. That plus I look a fair bit like my mom and there's a pretty high chance that you could just guess my mom around here. Not like you can't throw a rock and hit like three Summer kids," Lorelei shrugged. "I'm Lorelei, from the Summer Country, one of Mom--Guinevere's kids," she said, nodding and extending her hand, "nice to meet you, Costin."
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 15, 2017 11:13:45 GMT -5
He had no idea if this was working or not, if she could tell that he was utterly making all of this up, if she knew his disregard for these "crushes" she was speculating on wasn't because he thought there were an endless number, but because he was fairly certain that number was zero. He had gone out of his way to alienate so many people, he was unpleasant to be around, and if he was really honest, he intentionally drove people away because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to hold onto them if he didn't. It wasn't mystery, it was self-preservation.
But she didn't need to know that. And he was making her laugh, at least a little, so he felt like maybe he wasn't failing at this completely. "I'm not well-versed in the genealogy of my classmates," he admitted. "I come from...another dimension, I suppose you could say. I don't know all the science of it, but I know that in my universe, things are quite different. I've certainly never seen you." He took her hand, and brushed his lips across her knuckles in a light kiss before setting it back down on the table between them, not immediately letting go. "I would have remembered you." Smooth, Costin, so smooth, there was no way she'd be able to see through that, right?
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 15, 2017 12:27:52 GMT -5
"Yeah, some sort of space faring vampire dimension, right?" asked Lorelei, nodding. "The portals kind of bring us from all sorts of--" Lorelei paused as he raised her hand, giving it a slight kiss. Yet again she felt that little shiver going down her spine and making her feel a little gooey inside. Boys didn't generally notice her, or if they did, they usually sort of walked around her. Or when her dad was around, they ran like someone was about to skewer them with a sword. Plus, Costin's smoothness was definitely not lost on her.
"Oh yeah," agreed Lorelei, giggling a little, "you totally would have. I'm totally hard to forget once you get to talking to me. Sort of like a carriage accident. Or, oh, I've been compared to a complete assault on all the senses before! Definitely get the unforgettable thing a lot," Lorelei paused, looking down at her hand. She shifted. "I just got here though, so there's no way you would've seen me unless you were wandering around Camelot or the Summer country or something. and if you had been, then we probably would've noticed. It would be all 'oh, who is that mysterious, darkly handsome and suave young man?' And they'd be all 'you mean Mordred?' 'No, that one, over there, who's brooding in the corner, not plotting the downfall of magic and the Pendragon family.'" It bears noting that Lorelei did different voices for each bit of the conversation, deepening and raising her voice in turn, which made the whole thing sound a bit like a puppet show done by a crazy person.
Which, oddly enough, was yet another comparison people had made about conversing with Lorelei!
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 15, 2017 14:10:38 GMT -5
"Precisely," Costin nodded. "Well...I wouldn't say the whole dimension is space-faring vampires, but there are a good deal more vampires and a lot more space-faring than there are in this dimension, I think." It was hard to say...he hadn't met any vampires or seen anyone doing any space-faring, so he figured that was a safe assumption.
"I know of Camelot, a little," he said, amused at her various descriptions of herself. Who described themselves as a carriage accident? She mentioned Mordred, which made sense and confirmed Mordred's assertion that he knew her. It gave him more confidence in Mordred's plan for this whole situation (just a little). "But you are correct, I've never been there." Darkly handsome and suave, eh? He could live with that. He was going to have to tell Mordred about that one later. But...again, speaking of Mordred, that other bit was interesting. He ran his thumb along the top edge of her hand, tracing the ridge of her index finger, then pulled his hand back to lift his glass for another sip.
"Lorelei," he said, smiling hungrily at her over his wine, "you do have a wealth of information in you, don't you? The downfall of magic and the Pendragon family?" he repeated, trying to keep his curiosity casual. "That sounds interesting." She certainly was an odd one, but...well, Costin was pretty preoccupied with his own insistence on being out of the ordinary, so he couldn't fault her for that. Maybe she was trying to keep people from bothering her, too, although that still didn't explain why she'd decided to invite herself to his dinner.
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 15, 2017 16:21:42 GMT -5
Lorelei was, by this point, hanging on nearly every word. She'd leaned forward slightly, staring at Costin, making sure to take in every syllable. It certainly didn't hurt that his voice had that whole darkly seductive, perfect guy to read sexy audiobook thing going for it. Almost made Lorelei want to ask him to start reading something sexy. Maybe later.
Never been there, but knew something, huh, that probably meant he'd talked to someone. But apparently not one of the Summer kids? Or just not enough to have pegged Lorelei as one? Did make sense; the family had this tendency toward forgetting her from time to time and stuff. "I am just full of information!" agreed Lorelei. "most of it is pretty accurate too. Some of it is based on conjecture and cross-referencing various tomes and journals that our parents left behind .You'd be surprised how thorough everyone was. Some people just really like to put their plans down in books. I'd say something like one third of us have prophecies circling around our heads, either directly or, like, indirectly.
"Like you," she moved some stuff to the side. "your parents are these darkly dark dark guys, so you're probably going to end up either turning into some kind of super-villain or dark antihero. I'm betting it depends mostly on your relationship status, since those are usually the axis of motivation for these sort of thing." Lorelei nodded, beginning to adjust objects on the table. If she wasn't stopped, she was going to end up making diagrams.
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 16, 2017 7:38:32 GMT -5
Costin watched her intently. He hadn't been lying when he told Mordred that her appearance wasn't entirely regrettable, but it wasn't her physical appearance that was catching his interest at the moment. She seemed fully invested in whatever it was she was talking about...conjecture and prophecies and such.
"A villain or an antihero, hm?" He liked the sound of that. Vampires were very rarely the heroes of their own stories, with a few unfortunate exceptions that weren't really mentioned in polite circles. He had never had any hopes of becoming a shining beacon of hope in society or anything preposterous like that. Costin didn't want to be an out of the ordinary vampire - he just wanted to be a normal vampire, which involved a lot of traits still pretty abnormal for a human being. "See, I'd disagree with you there," he said, forgetting for a moment that he was trying not to be contrary. "I don't think..."
Don't tell her you think relationships are stupid and pointless, Costin, that's not how you seduce a girl. GIrls don't like to hear that kind of thing. Except maybe Gwyn, that might have impressed Gwyn. She probably thought a relationship would get in the way of her training, and she was absolutely right. It was funny, how occasionally people came to the same conclusions for completely different reasons.
Anyway.
"I don't think my relationship status would really dictate that," he said, shrugging. "I think there's a lot more weight in personal responsibility and decision. People do stupid, foolish things for love. I would know."
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 16, 2017 16:34:05 GMT -5
Disagree? Lorelei paused, more than a little curious. He hadn't directly turned her down or called her foolish. He... well, he almost talked to her like he sort of understood, or at least that he thought her decidedly less crazy and more misdirected than anything else. That had Lorelei pausing, blinking those big brown eyes while she tried to figure out where this was going.
"Relationships dictate a lot," she said. "Sure, a lot comes down to, like, personal responsibilities and duty, but that sort of thing can get trumped. My par--" she hesitated, but she'd already started, "my parents kind of took aside their personal decisions for romance and love, and I'm kind of the result of that. Doesn't mean you're wrong," she reached for one of the salt shakers, fingering it, 'people do dumb things for love all the time. But they also do brave, heroic things for love."
Lorelei rolled the salt shaker in her fingers, still studying it closely, as if it had the script for what she wanted to say. "Plus, I guess it's not just that. It could be other relationships. The friends you have, the connections you make. It's like," she looked up at Costin, meeting his gaze, "we wouldn't do a lot of what we do if it weren't for other people. You and I definitely wouldn't be here if it weren't for other people doing things for each other," she set the shaker down, fingers still playing with it for a moment. She felt like she'd just made an awful hash of the whole explanation. Who heard of a vampire that didn't like love? Wasn't that, like, their thing? After blood and world domination, that is.
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 17, 2017 11:21:20 GMT -5
It would take a lot more than a silly relationship to inspire Costin to do something brave and heroic. For one, he had no interest in risking his own neck before he got the thing he wanted the most in the world, and brave heroic things also tended to be risky things. There was just no one who was worth that kind of nonsense. But then...she was right that neither of them would right at this table in this moment if it weren't for somebody loving someone else. Dracula had never come out and told Costin that he only tolerated him for Tulio's sake (not before this past weekend, anyway), but Costin had somehow always known it. It wasn't as if Dracula had ever tried to hide his contempt and frustration.
"I would never let someone else have that kind of influence over my decisions," he shook his head. "It's no good. What if they leave you? What if they never really loved you to begin with and it turns out they were using you for their own purposes?"
He watched her move the salt shaker in her hand, and he wondered briefly what the circumstances of her birth had been. Her parents loved each other, just as his did, but...there was something different about her, obviously. What element of her upbringing had made her the kind of person who would still be sitting here talking to him, after their initial interaction?
"Tell me more about your parents," he said, and as soon as he'd said it, he felt as if someone else had spoken for him. Why had he asked that? He didn't need to know about her parents. He didn't even want to know about his own parents.
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 17, 2017 12:24:46 GMT -5
Lorelei rolled her eyes, leaning forward again. "You're taking it all wrong," she insisted, waving a hand. "It's not about manipulation. It's about you doing something for someone else because you want to. Because you love and care about their happiness and wellbeing, to a point where you put them above you. It's not because they make you do it, but because you choose to put someone above yourself."
This also collided quite frequently with Do the Right Thing, which was the number one rule that had been embedded in Lorelei for as long as she could remember. Which was sort of odd, since both her parents were the kind that would actually put one another above Doing Right when it came to it... which was probably some sort of fatal flaw that might have led to the Downfall of Camelot if it weren't for about a dozen other factors *cough*Mordred*cough*
Odd that Lorelei's thoughts aligned so nicely with Costin's next question. "They're Queen Guinevere of the Summer Country and her lead knight, Sir Lancelot du Lac," she said, shrugging. "It's actually super complicated because my mom loves a lot of people and children and my dad's this super loyal guy who stands around her growling at everyone else. So it's sort of sweet in a kind of messed up way," Lorelei leaned forward, all but slumping on a table, "kinda like me, huh?"
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 17, 2017 16:43:28 GMT -5
"That's just not a good survival instinct," Costin pointed out. "You know, we've evolved thus far as a species, and gone a step further, even, in vampires, but we'll still do the most foolish, dangerous things just because of a warm fuzzy feeling in our hearts." He finished off his wine, and glanced up to see if the server was close to coming back. "Like...there, what you've just said about your parents. Why does it make any sense at all for your father to hang about when she clearly doesn't respect him or his feelings? It isn't sensible."
Costin, that's not seductive. Telling a girl how ill-fated her parents' romance is, that's not sexy.
"I suppose it does have a sort of charm about it," he conceded. "Like...one of those tragic novels. Romeo and Juliet, or whatever, but I assume your parents are fully grown and not barely teenagers." He lifted a hand to flag down the server, deciding that he'd rather not wait any longer.
He was momentarily perplexed by her last little comment there, the one about herself. Costin could relate to the "kind of messed up" thing more than he would admit, and when she said that, it sent a confusing little stab of melancholy right to his heart.
"At least you have the 'sweet' thing going for you," he pointed out. "There's usually some kind of mitigating factor. And you're quite nice to look at, even with the whole..." He waved a hand, "you know, 'rolled all the way down the street to get here' sort of air about you."
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 18, 2017 12:04:47 GMT -5
Lorelei shrugged at the mention of it making sense. "You mean besides me, right? Since they were kinda together before i was a thing?" She grinned, showing off some surprisingly white teeth as she did. "But that's kinda the point: it doesn't, and that's what makes it kind of magical."
And tragic in some ways. Lorelei had read Romeo and Juliet from someone's library at some point (probably her mom, because Gwen's the sort to keep tragic romances on her bookshelf). She did see the connection, though she was almost tempted to point out that, historically speaking, her parents likely came before that, but time got a little weird around Trenale and dealing with their separate worlds. It was usually best just to think of everything as being entirely different worlds and all.
"See, now you're trying to flatter me some more. Plus, this is, like, me looking pretty decent," Lorelei shrugged, before leaning forward. "Is it really just all about survival for you? Because then wouldn't it, like, make more sense to have lots of people around? Strictly speaking they'd be juicy meat shields if someone decided to attack if nothing else, and allies if you're tight with them. When you're in love you're gonna have a built in ally, and that's good strategy, right?"
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 18, 2017 18:19:22 GMT -5
Staying with someone you didn't care or who didn't care for you didn't sound magical to Costin, it sounded straight up stupid. Especially if you were only doing it for a child. But then, Costin wasn't exactly a reliable source of information on quality parenting, even he knew that.
"It's about survival until I can do more than survive," he said, shaking his head. "Don't get me wrong, I fully intend to see all there is to see, once I'm equipped to navigate it. But until then...Lorelei, being in love isn't strategy, it's giving someone else the power to destroy you. That is not a power I would ever give someone willingly." He conjured up a smile, another of those characteristically dead-eyed ones. "Unless, of course, she were...pretty decent looking." He winked, although it was entirely possible it looked more like he was trying to clear something out of his eye.
The waiter returned with their food, and Costin lifted his hands from the table to make room for his plate, grabbing his napkin and placing it in his lap. "You know, I try not to get attached to food items, but this place does do so well with dead things."
Post by Lorelei Summer-Lac on Oct 19, 2017 8:19:32 GMT -5
Lorelei rolled her eyes. "This isn't gonna happen, Costin, obviously," she said, waving a hand. "But seriously, you should reconsider the whole love thing. Love literally destroys magic and saves lives and has a power of its own that is actually documented and real. In a place like this? Where people come from other dimensions? Counting it out is as stupid as falling into it."
Which Lorelei with a quick smile before she had to set up to let the server put plates in front of them. The smell did remind her of home in some ways, making her pause to take a deep breath, eyes closed. She was mid-sniff when she heard Costin's comment, and it immediately sent her into a fit of giggles. Lorelei tried covering her mouth, but that almost made it worse. She just couldn't help it: did so well with dead things? That was just so... weird. In the best possible way.
Post by Costin Dracula on Oct 19, 2017 16:11:35 GMT -5
It wasn't going to happen? Costin was momentarily perplexed, first at having misjudged his own abilities at seduction, and secondly...well, why was she tolerating him, if she was having none of it? He paused, halfway through cutting a piece of his filet, and looked over at her, brows coming together in a confused frown.
"It's not?" he said, realizing a little too late that for his dignity's sake, he probably should have pretended to have no idea what she was talking about. Too late now, though. "I'm sorry, I...I think I misread the situation." No you didn't, Costin, you were just trying to make it something completely different. "You...I thought...wait, if you..."
He shoved a piece of steak into his mouth and chewed, looking down at his food before swallowing, then reached for his wine again.
"Do you mean to tell me," he said slowly, "that you knew I was..." He cleared his throat and muttered something that might have been the word 'flirting,' but it was garbled enough that it was difficult to tell. "You just...stayed anyway? Why?"