Fly Where I Shall Lead (Daedalus/Julian/Lillie, Julian/Caitlin) [PG]
Title: Fly Where I Shall Lead
Author: havocthecat
Fandom: Kindred: the Embraced
Pairings: Daedalus/Julian/Lillie, Julian/Caitlin
Summary: Lillie's not just a pretty face. Daedalus sees all that and more.
Author's Notes: This is a rewrite of something I posted ages ago (in the mists of time before LJ). It's set during "The Rise and Fall of Eddie Fiori." Many thanks to butterflykiki and lizbetann, who gave me encouragement and betareading when I wrote the first version of this.
***
It was cold. I was cold. Julian was dead. For one brief instant, I was overwhelmed. Everything I kept inside, all the passions a Toreador holds within her came boiling out.
So I froze to brittle hardness. I took every step to Daedalus' basement rooms like one wrong move would shatter me. My hand touched the wall. Julian's wall. My open eyes stared at the bricks, but in front of them flickered hallucinations. My blood couldn't sort through madness to find the premonitions, not now, not when all I could see was dark smears of Julian's blood coating my hands.
I didn't let Daedalus touch me. If he touched me, I'd break.
We were lovers once. Did you know that? He's monstrously inhuman, but I don't let the looks fool me. He's not alone in that. The Nosferatu aren't alone in that. More than one Toreador has asked me why I keep company with someone as diseased as he must be. No one who looked like that could truly be worth anything.
Sometimes those of my clan sicken me. Not always, and not often, but sometimes. Those that do never survive past the next sunrise.
Daedalus is an artist. I've seen his soul. Most Nosferatu crawl in the sewers, content to skulk and spy on our kind. It's become almost a game between our clans. Shut them out, see how they find the chinks in our armor, and then block them out once more. Daedalus is different. If I'd known him before his Embrace, he would be Toreador.
So I didn't let him touch me. I didn't let him see too much. I just sat back in his chair and told him what I'd done. I don't know what I was thinking. Sometimes I think I wanted him to kill me, and sometimes I think I wanted his forgiveness. Sometimes I think I just wanted to mourn with someone else who loved Julian.
They think I don't know Daedalus shared Julian's bed. I know all of Julian's lovers. Daedalus was no threat, not the way Alexandra was, nor this mortal he moons over now.
When I found out Julian wasn't dead, the ice I'd sealed around my heart melted. I fell into the Beast's clutches, controlling my raging fury. Julian. Bastard that he was, he could have told me he was alive. Eddie. He manipulated me. I let him do it.
The sword was there, and everyone was staring at Julian. No one was paying the least bit of attention to me. I wasn't a threat to them. Not Lillie, the Toreador with no art. The beautiful Toreador who was there to make Julian look pretty, or maybe to give him an extra vote in the Primogen council.
Brujah can be so stupid. I didn't get to be Primogen because of my looks.
Julian was going to have him killed anyway, he said, after he saw what I'd done. Best that the execution be done this way. No need to kill anyone more over this.
The look in his eyes told me the only reason he didn't have me killed was that I'd played executioner for him. He knew what I'd done.
Damn him. Damn him. It was all for him. I've killed for him. I've bartered away my soul for him. I've shared everything - everything - with him, and he still goes back to that mortal woman of his. I could seduce her. I could love her. If she were Kindred. If she didn't love Julian.
It's just too bad she's in such a high risk situation. Playing with the creatures of the night can be so deadly. Poor Julian's going to be so upset when something happens to her.
***
Lillie stumbled into my haven. I'd never before seen her be anything less than graceful. She's so beautiful, inside and out, though I doubt many others can find the truth underneath the ice queen she shows the world. I can't imagine what could have caused the exterior to become the entirety of her soul.
We're opposites, Lillie and I. Beneath her image burns a flame that almost nothing can quench, while I am the cold, logical demon who is nearly devoid of emotion.
When she is around, I bask in her fierce joy in life; the heat of her passion allows me, all too briefly, to express what is in my heart.
Sometimes we are lovers. I cherish those hours beyond all reason. If I could love, she would be my one, true passion. She would brighten the eternity of darkness that I dwell within.
There was another, a young mortal girl who captured me with her voice. The pain within her spoke to me. Her songs--they reflected my anguish, and by absorbing her pain and mingling it with my own, it was shared, at least for a while, and made bearable.
I could not go to her. I would watch her; bask in her music and hope that some day she would see me. I feared that day as much as I longed for it.
It was Lillie who gave me courage. She has a fierce joy in life that she shares with us all, whether we realize it or not.
I went to her, this mortal singer whose hair glowed in the moonlight. I was beautiful, restored to my mortal glory until sunrise. I was content in her arms.
When the first rays of the sun touched my face, my peace dissolved along with my mask. I became a monster to her. Her sight was as clouded as all mortals' sight is.
When I returned to my rooms, Lillie was there. For a short time, it was truly a haven. A home is someplace I make mine. A haven is a place where I am comforted, protected--sometimes even loved.
Her soft smile and knowing eyes welcomed me, and her arms held me as I cried. I sobbed like a child in her arms while she soothed me.
I am a monster. Where I was once handsome, I am now foul and loathsome.
Julian does not see in Lillie what I see in her. He tells her she has the soul of a Nosferatu because she is sometimes heartless and occasionally cruel. These are facets that make up only a small part of her. Lillie is who and what she is, for reasons unknown even to Julian and msyelf, and she accepts this. Julian cannot. She is a mystery that he cannot puzzle out, and the enigma both intrigues and repels him.
I would warn Julian of the danger that lies in wait for his mortal woman, but I hold myself back. This game has played out in several variations. Alexandra was the last piece. First Julian won. Then Lillie took Alexandra's life, with my claws the proxy for it.
The balance between them waits to be tipped. Catlin will manage it this time, and I will watch and wait to comfort Lillie when she breaks.
--end--
Author: havocthecat
Fandom: Kindred: the Embraced
Pairings: Daedalus/Julian/Lillie, Julian/Caitlin
Summary: Lillie's not just a pretty face. Daedalus sees all that and more.
Author's Notes: This is a rewrite of something I posted ages ago (in the mists of time before LJ). It's set during "The Rise and Fall of Eddie Fiori." Many thanks to butterflykiki and lizbetann, who gave me encouragement and betareading when I wrote the first version of this.
***
It was cold. I was cold. Julian was dead. For one brief instant, I was overwhelmed. Everything I kept inside, all the passions a Toreador holds within her came boiling out.
So I froze to brittle hardness. I took every step to Daedalus' basement rooms like one wrong move would shatter me. My hand touched the wall. Julian's wall. My open eyes stared at the bricks, but in front of them flickered hallucinations. My blood couldn't sort through madness to find the premonitions, not now, not when all I could see was dark smears of Julian's blood coating my hands.
I didn't let Daedalus touch me. If he touched me, I'd break.
We were lovers once. Did you know that? He's monstrously inhuman, but I don't let the looks fool me. He's not alone in that. The Nosferatu aren't alone in that. More than one Toreador has asked me why I keep company with someone as diseased as he must be. No one who looked like that could truly be worth anything.
Sometimes those of my clan sicken me. Not always, and not often, but sometimes. Those that do never survive past the next sunrise.
Daedalus is an artist. I've seen his soul. Most Nosferatu crawl in the sewers, content to skulk and spy on our kind. It's become almost a game between our clans. Shut them out, see how they find the chinks in our armor, and then block them out once more. Daedalus is different. If I'd known him before his Embrace, he would be Toreador.
So I didn't let him touch me. I didn't let him see too much. I just sat back in his chair and told him what I'd done. I don't know what I was thinking. Sometimes I think I wanted him to kill me, and sometimes I think I wanted his forgiveness. Sometimes I think I just wanted to mourn with someone else who loved Julian.
They think I don't know Daedalus shared Julian's bed. I know all of Julian's lovers. Daedalus was no threat, not the way Alexandra was, nor this mortal he moons over now.
When I found out Julian wasn't dead, the ice I'd sealed around my heart melted. I fell into the Beast's clutches, controlling my raging fury. Julian. Bastard that he was, he could have told me he was alive. Eddie. He manipulated me. I let him do it.
The sword was there, and everyone was staring at Julian. No one was paying the least bit of attention to me. I wasn't a threat to them. Not Lillie, the Toreador with no art. The beautiful Toreador who was there to make Julian look pretty, or maybe to give him an extra vote in the Primogen council.
Brujah can be so stupid. I didn't get to be Primogen because of my looks.
Julian was going to have him killed anyway, he said, after he saw what I'd done. Best that the execution be done this way. No need to kill anyone more over this.
The look in his eyes told me the only reason he didn't have me killed was that I'd played executioner for him. He knew what I'd done.
Damn him. Damn him. It was all for him. I've killed for him. I've bartered away my soul for him. I've shared everything - everything - with him, and he still goes back to that mortal woman of his. I could seduce her. I could love her. If she were Kindred. If she didn't love Julian.
It's just too bad she's in such a high risk situation. Playing with the creatures of the night can be so deadly. Poor Julian's going to be so upset when something happens to her.
***
Lillie stumbled into my haven. I'd never before seen her be anything less than graceful. She's so beautiful, inside and out, though I doubt many others can find the truth underneath the ice queen she shows the world. I can't imagine what could have caused the exterior to become the entirety of her soul.
We're opposites, Lillie and I. Beneath her image burns a flame that almost nothing can quench, while I am the cold, logical demon who is nearly devoid of emotion.
When she is around, I bask in her fierce joy in life; the heat of her passion allows me, all too briefly, to express what is in my heart.
Sometimes we are lovers. I cherish those hours beyond all reason. If I could love, she would be my one, true passion. She would brighten the eternity of darkness that I dwell within.
There was another, a young mortal girl who captured me with her voice. The pain within her spoke to me. Her songs--they reflected my anguish, and by absorbing her pain and mingling it with my own, it was shared, at least for a while, and made bearable.
I could not go to her. I would watch her; bask in her music and hope that some day she would see me. I feared that day as much as I longed for it.
It was Lillie who gave me courage. She has a fierce joy in life that she shares with us all, whether we realize it or not.
I went to her, this mortal singer whose hair glowed in the moonlight. I was beautiful, restored to my mortal glory until sunrise. I was content in her arms.
When the first rays of the sun touched my face, my peace dissolved along with my mask. I became a monster to her. Her sight was as clouded as all mortals' sight is.
When I returned to my rooms, Lillie was there. For a short time, it was truly a haven. A home is someplace I make mine. A haven is a place where I am comforted, protected--sometimes even loved.
Her soft smile and knowing eyes welcomed me, and her arms held me as I cried. I sobbed like a child in her arms while she soothed me.
I am a monster. Where I was once handsome, I am now foul and loathsome.
Julian does not see in Lillie what I see in her. He tells her she has the soul of a Nosferatu because she is sometimes heartless and occasionally cruel. These are facets that make up only a small part of her. Lillie is who and what she is, for reasons unknown even to Julian and msyelf, and she accepts this. Julian cannot. She is a mystery that he cannot puzzle out, and the enigma both intrigues and repels him.
I would warn Julian of the danger that lies in wait for his mortal woman, but I hold myself back. This game has played out in several variations. Alexandra was the last piece. First Julian won. Then Lillie took Alexandra's life, with my claws the proxy for it.
The balance between them waits to be tipped. Catlin will manage it this time, and I will watch and wait to comfort Lillie when she breaks.
--end--