Care for a Bite and a Drink?

[baronbalaz]

Who: The Baron and Kimberly
What: Meeting for drinks
When: Backdated to Dec. 30th
Where: @ 11
Rating:  M for first meetings
Status: Open and Incomplete

Comments

[baronbalaz]

It wasn't a question Byron wanted to answer, but at the same time she was so earnest in her assertion that it deserved an answer of some honesty. Thankfully there was a way of explaining things that didn't have anything to do with revealing his Vampric heritage.

"Human history is marked with violent revolution--in my own time, I was of the class that was often rebeled against. The bourgeoisie. Nobility. My family is one of oppression and bloodshed, and to an extent I am as guilty as my ancestors. It is the reason my journey was so treacherous...I was under threat of death from almost everyone I met. But most of all my own family. I despised how they chose to live, especially when the rest of the world had moved on." That, and more assassination attempts than he could count had given him a less than endearing impression of his father.

"To be honest it is still surprising when strangers smile to me in street."

In no time at all, the carriage had come to the lake, clopping through the thickly wooded path, pushing snow-heavy branches out of the way.

"I have been coming out here to contemplate things since I arrived." He motioned to the windows of the carriage and the tint seemed to bleed away, leaving a clear view of the frozen lake at night. A sliver moon only just managed to shine though the clouds and onto a perfectly black water surface.

[onlynewlife]

Silently, Kimberly listened as Byron answered her question. Nobility. Nobility from the future...with prosthetic fangs. She couldn't think of any reason why he'd have to lie about it, so it wasn't that she didn't believe him, it just...felt strange to hear. "No offense, Byron, but...that sounds a lot more like the past than I'd like to think the future is," she admitted, sounding a bit sad. "Kind of a bummer..." she finished with a sheepish shrug. "But, in any case, it's different here..."

It was really different here. Kimberly had come here for the very thing that Byron seemed to be getting inadvertantly. A second chance. A new, clean slate. "You get to start all over. Nobody has to know what happened where you came from unless you want them to," she said. The words came because it was the one thing she felt like was her real and true saving grace; no one had to know that Kimberly nearly died too many times in too short a while. No one here had to know that she used to have psychic visions of impending death. As far as anyone in Aternaville had to know, Kimberly was your average, ordinary girl who just so happened to hail from a time six years in the past. "So just...start over," she finished with a small smile.

Kimberly looked out the window, having just missed the tinting fading away and barely noticing that they seemed to be more clear than they'd been before, and she gave a small smile. The scene was placid and beautiful. It made the photographer long since sleeping inside her stir ever so slightly. "God that's pretty," she whispered.

[baronbalaz]

"It is an...interesting, future, Kimberly." Byron looked out at the lake with her, lost in thought. Only Hugh had ever believed he could really start over (a child's opinion, he was only eight) and Byron had failed to protect him. The boy was lost somewhere on The Frontier, alone, captured by evil magicians or dead. It was his fault. "Not one I would ever wish you to see." 'You would have made a beautiful Noble.'

Immediately guilty at the thought, The Baron looked away from the window. "I wasn't sure what to think when I first arrived, but perhaps you're right." For a moment Byron leaned onto his knees, elbows bent and head down. "It's just...a bit to get used to." That was an understatement. Then Kimberly made note of the lake; Byron looked up, a little surprised. "You think so? I haven't met many who have the eye to appreciate such landscapes." The night was strictly the domain of Nobility and to hear a human compliment what someone from his own time would have run scared of...

Well, it brought his smile back, just a little. "You're an artist, aren't you?"

[onlynewlife]

For a moment, Kimberly said nothing. She considered what he'd said and her brow knit slightly as she watched the way the moonlight rippled on the lake as a breeze caught the surface. Finally, she spoke. "If the future is so bleak...what is there to look forward to...?" she asked slowly. Then, she looked over at him, a bit surprised to see that he was looking down. So, she looked back out the window again. "I mean...when does it all turn to shit?"

There wasn't, Kimberly thought, a single thing that she could say that would help him believe that he could and would get used to being treated differently. Better. So she simply chose to say nothing.

"Photographer," she agreed with a small nod, looking away from the lake again to look back at him. "I tend to focus on nature, buildings...landscapes," she divulged. "Everything's just too pretty, you know? How can you not appreciate it?"

[baronbalaz]

"Thankfully, if my future has any chance of happening, it will happen long after you ever have to worry about it." He grinned a little more, his expression still somewhat taut. "You would have enjoyed some of it though--at the height of the Nobility's power there were balls and galas ever night. You could stand on a balcony in any mansion and watch the dancers in the courtyard below--pale white gowns twisting and unfurling like flowers. There were...a few, I remember as a child...they looked like stars to me then, all glittering silver and gold." They weren't fond thoughts really, but the way Byron spoke of them channeled the same wonder he held as a little boy. When he was old enough, his mother often brought him with her.

"Photograph?" Byron puzzled. "That's, an image on paper, isn't it? I think the family doctor De Carriole had one of those. Father preferred portraits and landscapes the traditional way. He must have hired and fired a million painters while I still lived in Krauhausen. Kept saying they couldn't paint me right, that in the family portraits I never looked enough like him." Byron shook his head and laughed a little. "But I agree, there is much beauty in the world. It's a shame we can't see it all tonight. I believe I should get you back." It wasn't late, not for him, but the position of the moon said that it might be getting a little late for his guest.

"There's a saying my mother used, one I never understood...something about turning into a pumpkin."

[onlynewlife]

A weak smile slid over Kimberly's lips at the imagery that Byron's response brought forward. "Too bad I wouldn't ever have gotten to see it because I'd probably have been a peasant or something," she teased amiably. Then she looked back out the window. "Sounds really lovely, though," she replied.

Nodding, Kimberly looked back at Byron again when he spoke. "Yeah, pretty much. Digital images on paper, more like, most of the time," she admitted. "I think that's cool. I always wanted to be able to paint, but what I picture in my head and what comes out on the paper are very, very different and not in a good way," she laughed. "So I gave it up and found something else that suited me better. Point and shoot. Instant art," she replied.

Kimberly smirked at his comment. "Oh yeah the Cinderella reference - a universal one for 'it's getting freakin' late,'" she said with a nod. "Yeah, I probably should get back, you're right. It's been fun, though," she said with a genuine smile. "Thank you." Kimberly made a mental note to come back to the lake sometime, when she was feeling like getting back to taking pictures.

[baronbalaz]

'Lovely for people like my father, who didn't care about the people he was supposed to be protecting with his vast power and wealth, Byron thought, frowning a little.

"I don't have the nostalgia for it most of my generation do," He said, giving the mental command for the horses to make their way out of the park at a steady gallop. The carriage jerked once but continued to roll on steadily from there. Byron chuckled at Kimberly's admission that she had never been a good painter. "Part of my father's upbringing was the insistence that I have classical training in all of the high arts; music, and dance I took to easy enough because they were a lot like fencing. I was dismal at painting, although my mother kept every single one in a personal gallery." He supposed it was just what mothers did, Nobility or not. "After a while all that really stuck was dance." And that was only because so much of the movement was tied in to his fighting style, and he'd had to do a lot of that over the years.

"It has, and you are more than welcome. Really, I should thank you for meeting me like this--I suppose I'll get used to it the more I do it, but...small steps, for now." The timing was actually rather apt, as Byron would need to feed soon, and there was so delicate way of explaining synthesized human blood.

[onlynewlife]

"I think that's cool, though, that you can dance. I always thought it'd be neat to know how. Maybe someday I'll ask you to teach me after all," Kimberly replied with a smile. The jerk of the carriage didn't bother her, but it did prompt her to look back out the window again, watching the scenery roll away as the carriage moved forward.

Kimberly raised her eyebrows slightly at what he'd said and she looked back at Byron curiously. "Like this...?" she asked, wondering what exactly he meant by that. Out? At random? Online and then in person? As the hotel neared outside the window Kimberly stifled a yawn with the back of her hand and gave him a small smile. "Maybe sometime when I've gotten a bit more sleep during the day we can stay out later," she suggested.

[baronbalaz]

"It is rather uncouth for someone of my status to agree to meeting a young woman anonymously," Byron explained. 'Unless I was planning to make a meal out of it.' "But as you say, that barely matters anymore." There was a somewhat happy up-tone to his voice when he said that. "And I've been considering converting one of the parlors of the mansion into a dance studio, I'll let you know when the renovations are complete." The building was still in the process of being mapped out and cleaned, and it was slower going than it would be if Byron didn't have to continually explain to Castiel why renovations were necessary.

The horses cantered to a halt a few minutes later, the carriage door opened on it's own to allow Kimberly out. "I look forward to it. Sleep well."

[onlynewlife]

Kimberly's lips parted into an "oh," as she nodded her understanding. She pretended the statement didn't make her feel a little dirty for having been referred to as, essentially, an anonymous young woman soliciting a rendez-vous with other anonymous parties. Mostly because she was and partially because she knew that wasn't the intention of Byron's statement. "You get to be your own brand new you," she agreed with a grin, adding a excitable, "yay!" to the end of the statement.

A thoughtful smile crossed her face, then, as Byron mentioned converting a room into a dance studio. A pensive, "hmm..." soon followed and she gave a nod of approval. "You realize that's pretty bad ass," she pointed out.

As the carriage came to a stop, she looked out the window and was surprised when the door opened of its own accord. "Cool..." she breathed, mostly to herself. She looked back over her shoulder at Byron and smiled. "You too, when you do," she replied. "Thanks again. See you 'round, Byron. It was nice to meet you," she added sincerely before hopping out of the carriage and, wrapping her arms around herself to keep the cold breeze from making its way inside her coat to chill her, made her way back into the hotel for a good night's rest.