Orange blossoms...
...drifting as if suspended on water...
On a river...
...they are everywhere...
They bloom against the cheek...
...but most pungently where blood runs deeply...
Darkly...
...over his skin... Into your mouth...
No vampire in Europe has a garden such as this, not even those who boast the most wondrous of creatures and things (and things that are creatures). For this garden, this grove of oranges, blooms only in Chinon. First, upon the blood of a Spanish servant, around whom oranges are everywhere prevalent. Then, upon the tongue of your mate, this man trading blood with you. Lastly, across your own mouth, over your own tongue. This is how you come to know of Spain, the best of Spain -- sipped from an Angevin glass...
He has dined exclusively on Felipe, abstaining from all others. You can see it, the blood tells it all, how many oranges Felipe ingests. Willingly, of course, but the fruit is always given to him by your clever alchemist.
Yes, he has figured out how to ... bottle, as it were, a drink especially for you. A liqueur finer than any his glorious fruit-render windmill may create for him. What Felipe eats, how he eats it, even where and when -- these have been precisely chosen for this moment, for this pleasure. Cinnamon, orange and quince.
And when your mate comes to his servant, he is able to first sample his own culinary creation.
A painter... and an engineer... to the very last...
That has been your gift for this auspicious start of summer. That has been your gift and your drink tonight, borne by the best glass in Europe -- the body of William Plantagenet. For it is the combination of the orange-laced concoction with his own, unique blend that makes the drink. God bless the cabernet franc of Chinon...
He is in your arms, solid flesh made more solid by the exchange. His mouth is in motion against your shoulder. Blood streaks darkly in the interchange between his own and yours, his mouth and yours. The chaise lounge, formidable and substantial though it is, has barely enough room to contain such a banquet. Where it misses, William's body makes up for the loss.
The lounge doesn't really stand a chance...
"I think that I am bored," Ian laments, filling the air. His eyes look up above, gazing there. A careless rest, filled with his usual thinking. "Well," Ian exhales, somewhere deprecating his inaccuracy, "...I find myself, not really looking to do much of anything. Very odd," he says to himself. In truth, he's probably talking to himself more generally.
You happen to be privy.
"However, I am not bored with my boredom yet. Maybe I find it all terribly fascinating," Ian calculates, his hand touching dark hair. "So, I should be bored, terribly out of my mind, I am not. I can feel bored, say that I am bored, and well, find much to think about in that regard."
Grey eyes slide over and Ian gives a smile.
To the above, he then exhales. "I am also starting to think that...perhaps it would not be so awful if you went to Venice without me," Ian states, immediately following with, "Actually," his face twisting, "...if I could be assured that nothing horrible happened, I think I should be fine with that."
"You wait until I am full to say these things," the voice issues beside you, very slow in its drawling, very Loire in its leaning, and parts south warm it still more. Indigo is a brilliant muddle of dark blue and violet, like two colors swirling suspended on water (which, in a way, they are), the remnants of some artistic idea, some moment of creativity. They focus on you as you speak, eyebrows lifting.
Blood has passed. It ... apparently... lingers far more airily for you than for him, so easily it dissipates upon the air around you. For a moment, he feels as if he is momentarily trapped in 1782. But it passes.
He knows where he is, though the conversations have perhaps picked up where they were once discarded for other things. Perhaps that is the reason for the look you are given, something midway between pondering argumentativeness and confusion. But William does not leap to argue. He looks down at himself, to the evidence of blood, and he seems to linger in the sloth of the well-fed. Even what you had taken does not ease that well-fed look and coloring. One might wonder if Felipe has anything left to offer the world after such an engorging.
Of course, William does not speak about it...
"I do not know what horrible thing would happen, unless the city sinks and the building falls down on me. In which case, it would not matter, amours, if you were in Venice or not. Are you ... wanting me to offer you the finer points for why I think you should go, or are you just wanting me to listen?" That mouth curls in a smirk at such a notion. William sitting and listening, not speaking, not offering solutions.
He makes no move to leave the chaise. He simply rests upon it, a leg off the side and his face turned midway between you and the ceiling. Bored. You once said you could never be bored of our life. Never is shorter in the 21st Century than it seemed in the 20th...
"Of course I wait," Ian smiles now, knowing exactly what he's done. "I will think aloud, you will listen to me ramble. And at least one of us will forget it about it later - namely me - because right now, what I say matters so very little in the scheme of things." Ian sinks slightly against the chaise, relaxed as he can get: his mind only at half-speed now.
"And no, you don't have to go through the list," Ian smirks, looking over, "I know why I should go to Venice."
"I got your attention, didn't I?" Ian laughs.
The smile is bloody, edged yet, and the look is of the demigods of Greece and Rome, stretched out as he is upon a sofa of ancient design. All that is missing is the nymphs with the grapes. Or, shall you get grapes? "You got my attention, oui. If I were not so ... hmm," he grins and doesn't even bother trying to find words for the feeling in English, Gaelic, French or Latin, "... you might have gotten more than my attention. But it is no fun to just react to everything as I used to do. I don't have the energy," he rolls his eyes at his own youth and how that has changed.
"I am glad you know," William murmurs, shifting to let his mouth wander through the countryside of your neck. He can't imagine drinking more, so the kiss is all. "...but you are not the only one who can ramble." William is quiet for the intervening handful of moments, head resting back on the sofa, eyes on you, the colors still shifting in the light. It is worse than opium for euphoria, such drinking, such power. "I did not mean to interrupt your soliloquy," William's voice issues in depth and in softness, and his hand lazily waves you to continue.
"You should not wait until I am full to say these things," he suddenly interjects with a grin. "I can't argue properly when I am so ..." his hand simply gesticulates. He doesn't even know what to call it: drunk, alive, full, lazy, fat, happy, euphoric. "I know you, I am on to you now, there is no fooling me," William grins. "After nine centuries nearly. I am a quick learner, Dunross..."
"I see that," Ian says affirmatively, foot coming flat upon the chaise. His knee tilts left and right in its new height. "I should exactly wait until you are too full," he winks. Ian bites his bottom lip, gaze upwards as if he's searching for his last thought. "Ah, yes. Venice." Ian clears his throat, beginning again --
"I mean, if the city should sink or a building fall, well," Ian's hand waves, "...that would be natural and I think I could accept that with some modicum of satisfaction. Unfortunately," a finger comes up, "...I do not know any vampires killed by sinking or buildings. And hence my problem - anything should befall you, it is immediately nothing but foul play, and I shall be, well...inconsolable. And I do not relish sitting around worrying about such a very thing. Thus...I shall be in Venice myself, for my own peace of mind."
The grin is a work of art. The curve of the mouth. The iconic warmth that crowns his features. The persistence of canines just plucking at the fullness of that mouth, retracting slightly as his mouth spreads. Honey moves faster. "I do not know, it is a very heavy building. If I am not dead from it I would want to be," William chuckles suddenly. "But...you are right. This is about you, not me. Though, I am happy to know that you will be inconsolable should I meet some unfortunate act. I would not want you to be sad, therefore I will not die. Again." But wait. "So, if I were murdered, you should be inconsolable. But if a heavy object falls on me, say the Della Salute, you would not be inconsolable? Would you laugh?" He is chuckling, if you are not. "That is not a way to die for such a great duke. Even one whom everyone else thinks died at three. I have my pride, non?"
God yes...
"But it is not just so that you can be free of sadness should I die that you are coming to Venice, hmm? Perhaps there is a little, I do not know, some other reason, perhaps even if it is just a little reason, that you should want to be in Venice, even if the likelihood of my demise is slim?"
"No, no," Ian smiles, "...I will be inconsolable either way laird -- however, my..." Ian's brows arch as he finds the word, "...inability to be consoled," and now it's not the word that's the issue but the image, "...well, manifests itself differently if I have even the scantest, most ephemeral wisp of anything but sheer accident."
Ian's eyes flutter as he looks at you.
Venice, without your patronage, would cry out for you, if Ian was left there alone.
"I do not want to talk about my dying," his hand finds you, brushes against your skin and returns to a thigh. "It is not going to happen. You will be there to console my aching body and heart. I will be there so you do not have to be consoled, no matter how inconsolable you would be. I know..." William murmurs. "I was not completely out of consciousness in Newport. I remember." Not the syringe, but he remembers. And he wasn't even dead then.
"You have always had my best health and happiness in your mind, and there would be no one who would come to my aid, or to avenge me, faster than you. But let us hope now and in the future," his head rolls against the sofa cushion to bring that face to your field of vision, "...that we do not have to wonder or worry..."
"But if you have to kill someone, maybe I should make a list for you, like a last will and testament." Indigo sparkles in a wink. "I have a list somewhere, I think. If not, I can come up with one quickly enough..."
Ian quirks, then blinks once. Twice.
"That would be useful, yes."
Said in all seriousness.
"Agreed then. I will do it on the plane..."
William looks to you. You are so beautifully weird. "Do not worry, amours," William assures it with the timbre of his voice, with the look on his face, also serious, with the air and how it moves now between you. "There is no such thing as death."
The kiss tastes of orange and cinnamon and blood. It is warm and sudden. It lingers, giving birth to another kiss before it fades in a breath. There is no such thing as death.
No such thing as Death.
Ian's eyes narrow as he thinks about that a moment. He offers no response, but then looks askance a moment.
No such thing as death.
"I worry, Will, until I can worry no more. I accept that now," Ian smiles thinly.
"I will try...to think as you have suggested."
William smiles. It is a surprisingly tender look from a blood-stained mouth. "Maybe it is good that one of us worries. Just... do not make yourself sick with it, hmm? Plan all you want," he continues in a whisper. "But know that...whomever comes at me ..." the smile spreads and the eyebrows open outward, "i will likely take with me..."
The wink finishes the sentiment and on that topic he says no more. Instead, his arm opens, it surrounds you and his hand ends up in your hair. There is no such thing as Death. We have seen that it is true. There is no Time, no moment, when I shall be parted from you.
With an exhale, just a soft, just a brief exhale, William's face buries itself in the crook of your neck. At your skin, the subtle pricks of the well-practiced artisan. Ramble now all you want. William shall not be talking...
Posted by rowan at September 12, 2004 03:50 PM
