( closed. )

[youresovein]

WHO: Lestat & Claudia.
WHERE: A candy shop in Heropa.
WHEN: Evening, 2/13.
WHAT: Family affairs.
WARNINGS: idk my bff anne rice

[ A vampire walks into a chocolate shop. In another universe, it's the setup to a joke; in this one, a family (melo)drama.

The shop's bell tinkles as Lestat strolls in from the chilly evening, all feline swagger with a leather jacket and a pair of shopping bags, and ambles over to the checkout counter. He makes a show of looking around for a moment as though he's simply an ordinary customer, admiring all the delicate little sweets like rows of dainty soldiers behind glass, and finally offers his daughter a silky smile. ]

Ah, mademoiselle, can you help me? I'm looking for some gift advice.

[ This, it seems, is the game tonight. ]

Comments

[kidsmenu]

[She's tall right now. Five foot seven-- considerably taller than the average human woman. She has her blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. On her neck, though, there's a heart-shaped locket with a transparent cover, a picture of herself as a small blonde vampire. She knows it's a gimmick, of course; to be an ImPort, to sell candy with her strange status and stranger powers. It doesn't bother her at all. No doubt, because of the nature of her new powers. It'd be different, if she were a spectacle in a shop window, diminutive and childlike. Come See The Ancient Child!

She'd be caught on camera covered in blood in a night, imprisoned within a week.

But instead she's a free woman today. Feeling mild, satisfied, perhaps a little bored, when a certain blond man comes sailing in with his hair spreading in the air behind him like a cape. She looks at him. Her sculpted eyebrows climb on her head. She clasps her hands automatically in front of her stylish hipster apron.] Oui. For whom are you looking for a gift?

[youresovein]

[ For a moment, Lestat feels such an overwhelming sense of unreality that he's transported fully into the illusion — as though he's stepped through a door and into a version of his life where he hadn't destroyed everything he'd tried to hold onto. It had all been a dream, hadn't it? Here she is, and this is proof.

And then, distant but clear as a bell, the low awareness he always feels with mortals: that just beneath delicate skin pumps warm human blood. It brings him back around. He tries not to dwell on that.

Instead Lestat leans in, one forearm braced against the counter, and gazes at the vampire who is not a vampire, the child who is not a child. ] My daughter. [ He plucks a white chocolate rose from its display vase and twirls it between two fingers. ] You know, you look quite a lot like her.

[kidsmenu]

Hmmmmmmm, [she says out loud, just because— why not? She is entirely of being cagey despite looking like she's being cagey. She's a little like her father that way. Sitting at the table isn't the same as showing your hand. But the smile that she allows to creep over her face has a certain edge of sincerity to it. She's a little pleased, despite herself.] Well.

You do not look very old. I take it your daughter is a very young one then. [She doesn't tell him off for playing with the candy, not nearly— and the other girl at checkout, by now, knows better than to step in when there's another ImPort in the shop.] Perhaps something pink. Something shaped like a fat animal would be suitable for a little girl.

[Her word choice isn't kind, but her tone is mild. She motions at one of the displays nearby, glass containing a number of strawberry-colored kitty heads.]

[youresovein]

[ His eyebrows lift, amusement flickering in grey eyes, but he doesn't look to the case. It's Claudia that has his full attention — her subtle changes in expression, the familiar gestures that seem so fascinatingly alien on this mortal form. ]

How perfect, fat pink animals and soft things, [ Lestat laughs. ] But that's just it! Appearances can be so terribly deceiving.

[ A momentary lowering of his gaze, reflective but debatably sincere. The whole gesture is almost too polished and slick for something earnest, like it's something he's rehearsed. Except for the tiny flicker of hesitation. ]

No, I got very good at buying gifts for a little girl. So good, in fact, that I never bothered to learn very much more about the person she became.

[kidsmenu]

[Neither of them have ever been very good at sincerity and spontaneity and scoring off the slick, over-polished varnish that lends them this veneer of insincerity. Unless they were angry, of course. When Lestat and Claudia get angry, it's all pitchy voices and abrupt gestures. Sometimes fires. Sometimes blood clawed out of each others' faces, hands around each other's necks.

Positivity is difficult, okay.

She just looks at him for a long moment, her face empty of expression but thoughtful.] It sounds like she doesn't particularly need gifts then, in that case, [she says.] Perhaps she might better enjoy selecting something with you, for someone else. I don't know how good you are at taking advice, but it does speak to something of humility.

[youresovein]

[ So they can still surprise each other, then. Humility isn't a quality that Lestat gets to practice often. His first impulse, despite all his best intentions, despite the reason he'd come here in the first place is to resist when confronted with the word point-blank. He draws his shoulders up just so—

—and releases the tension in an amused sigh, letting his little half a game drop along with it. He can try. ]

Then come out with me tonight. Let me see things through your eyes. Perhaps my gift will be not arguing, how does that sound?

sorry i got donkey punched by RL, feel free to disregard if this is too old now

[kidsmenu]

[The girl hesitates. And not for the reasons that human girls would typically hesitate, standing before a monster hundreds of years old.]

Delightful, [is what she says, finally.] That sounds delightful. [And she's not being sarcastic, either. The corners of her mouth quirk. She almost glances away for a moment, before her eyes return to him.] There's a Manet exhibit opening tonight. Some of his work from the 1860s. [You know. From right after she died.

Or at least, according to what she knows: right after she came here.] Founders only, but they're making room for ImPorts of note. Do you suppose you could get us in, and find us something nice to wear?

[youresovein]

[ Lestat thinks of the jewelry in his shopping bags, little treasures he'd bought for her just because it made him happy to think of her, to be able to do it again. It had been so much simpler, hadn't it, when she was truly the child she appeared to be, and easy to love without fear or restraint. ]

Get out of here early, [ he entices, voice lowered to a stage whisper complete with cupped hand, ] and we'll still have time to pick out each other's outfits.

[ It's a shaky foundation, but it's what they have. ]

SKGHSLF I OOCLY FEEL BAD FOR LEStat im sorry

[kidsmenu]

[These days, she doesn't look like a child anymore. Maybe that'll help; simply calibrating his purchases to what girls who look the way she looks these days. Her eyes shade down toward his hands for a moment, vaguely interested— so much like a girl!!-- in what treasures he might have brought her.

But she isn't as simple a girl as she was. She doesn't simply ask.]

I will. I'll be out at five. And I'll see you then. [There's a fractioned instant of hesitation, then she leans forward, gets up on her toes. Brushes a kiss against his cheek, before settling back, turning away. Pretending, much like a cat, that she hadn't had much interest in him or his gift bags at all.]