View source for Awkward Vampire Conversations

{{Log Header
|Date of Scene=2014/07/28
|Location=Njorun Station - Infinite Library
|Synopsis=D meets Yuuki Kuran. Things get awkward. D frowns. Vampire chat.
|Thanks=
|Cast of Characters=D, Yuuki Kuran
|Tinyplot=
|pretty=
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{{Single Pose
|Poser=D
|Pose=        The Infinite Library houses countless wonders. Its vastness comprises the lore and research of a thousand million worlds and peoples, alien and not, and in the impossible facility's laboratories, new knowledge is cultivated every day. Intimidating, yet so thoroughly organized a neophyte could navigate its resources, its existence is a feat beyond reckoning.

        Yet the knowledge contained herein is not the only reason D finds the archive to be valuable. He has found it a place of peaceful solitude -- removed from the world, despite the intimate connection required in order to continue its growth. Here, he can sit and brood in relative isolation, with only the stream's constant trickle to disturb his senses.

        He sits in a cul-de-sac hidden among tall shelves, a peculiar shadow among a vista of pristine, cozy warmth. The book in his lap is only there for appearance's sake; he hasn't turned a page in some time. He is either lost to intense thought, or he is waiting. His expression -- or lack of it -- is difficult to define, at a glance.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=Yuuki Kuran
|Pose=        In contrast to the quiet serenity of the library, and those within, there is also energy. Night and day, one may say, but to be more precise...

        It was more like deep, black overcast twilight and the twinkling of stars and the moon on a clear night.

        Yuuki Kuran had heard of the wonderment of the Infinite Library, before. In fact, once she had learned that there was a place of purported infinite knowledge, the young vampire had decided to educate herself. Not the sort of education that required prompting, or cajoling, or testy and disappointed tutors and brothers. The kind that she needed to know for her third life. Or, perhaps, her first one being lived again.

        For before she was Kuran Yuuki, she was Cross Yuuki, a human girl who wanted to help and protect others. Maybe she had stopped being that girl. Maybe she hadn't. Honestly, she would feel bad about it later.

        As she enters the 'abandoned' cul-de-sac of booth and table and lit-enough reading area, she practically trips over herself, books spilling, just as the girl does.

        What remains is a pile of books, hair, girl-under-the-hair, and almost tasteful school uniform. The skirt was a bit short, but the rest was high-class. "I'm sorry... I didn't think anyone would be here." She offers.

        Nah, looks like now is a perfect time to feel bad for herself.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=D
|Pose=        Try as he might, he can't remain alone forever. The Hunter is shaken from his melancholy thoughts by the sudden arrival of a clumsy but good-natured girl whose voice he recognizes, if not her appearance. Look closely into the shadows wreathing his countenance, and you might catch the surprise restoring a vital gleam to his dark gaze.

        D rises smoothly from his seat. The chair's leather creaks, and his book can be heard closing, but there is no other sound from the pale youth until he has knelt before the girl and offered her his hand. "It's quite all right, Miss Kuran. We are in a public place; you were hardly intruding."

        His voice is deep and as graceful as his movements. Where from a distance he seemed remote and frigid, up close, he appears to be serene and...well, not exactly /warm/, but not unfriendly, either. The travelworn state of his black clothing takes away from his unnatural perfection to make him seem more normal. His ears may be pointed and his skin too flawless, his manners too refined, but he is far less /divine/ in person than his mannerisms would suggest.

        "My name is D; you /are/ Miss Kuran, aren't you?"

        Yuuki, on the other hand, is much more remarkable than expected. D is instantly struck by the essence she exudes. It's a quality more than anything physical, but to his senses, it is unmistakable. She is no mere girl. As the realization settles in, D's expression becomes more open in its surprise, his eyes widening a perceptible degree and his lips parting around a soft, sharp breath.

        The night's deep darkness is in her soul. A power both beautiful and monstrous gives her strength and immortality. Here is a girl, but also a monster -- a creature whose very nature is death itself. Or so he defines it.

        Vampire.

        "I see now why you were so concerned." D's hand remains extended toward Yuuki, waiting to pull her to her feet. A faint smile lends him a touch of humanity.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=Yuuki Kuran
|Pose=        "Oh... Well... That's good." Yuuki replies somewhat cheerily, as she starts to pick herself up, before that hand is offered. She looks up, big, soulful (and face-dominating) eyes looing back into the previously shadow-cast face.

        And her smile is one that betrays her days in the sun, rather than in the world of darkness. In fact, she is practically radiant for someone who is not just a vampire, but the Pureblood Princess super-duper vampiress vampire who ever vampired a vampire.

        "Erm, yes. I am Yuuki Kuran. Do I..." she begins, before she nods. "You were on the radio. I remember." She replies, before taking that hand.

        Then, she seems confused. "You do?" She responds curiously to his 'out-of-the-blue' notion of him knowing her desires. Then again, she never was the swiftest on the takeup. Somewhere in her, the part that Aido and Ruka had coached rebelled, trying to force her to draw up and act with poise and grace and Presence.

        Another part of her sneered in disdain and hissed in challenge, for some lesser creature to dare approach her.

        Thankfully, the former part of her was well exasperated and the latter part was summarily ignored in its little hole of her psyche that she kept locked up. In a box. At the bottom of the proverbial ocean.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=D
|Pose=       Though likely unaware of either Yuuki's standing as a Super Princess or her inner desire to become repulsed by his close company, if he does somehow realize these things, neither fact alters D's calm demeanor. He obviously recognizes /what/ she is, and must draw some conclusions based on the truth of her heritage, but the rest is too personal for him to realize, especially disguised as it is behind one of the more charming smiles he's seen.

        How could one feel unwelcome in such radiance? Rather than be turned away by some flash of insight, he instead feels compelled to strengthen his own dim smile. It will never match Yuuki's in quality, of course.

        "I am D, the Hunter you spoke to yesterday. Maybe it was just your nerves, but you seemed concerned by my profession." He lowers his hand back to his side once Yuuki has made her recovery. Making a small gesture behind him -- to indicate where his cape and sword have been set aside -- he continues. "The vampire Hunter, if you do not recall. I myself am a dhampir."

        Like she couldn't tell. The signs are all over him.

        "Are you all right?" Of course she is; a mere fall wouldn't scuff the knees of a /vampire/. He is too polite not to ask anyway, at least at this stage. Something about her tempts him from his icy shell. He has already been more forthcoming than he has been with many. By asking any question of her at all, he's displayed more concern than he would show to most others.

        Perhaps it was that smile.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=Yuuki Kuran
|Pose=       As a person, one thing stands out plainly to any vampire's senses. She is two things: Something to fear for her power, and something to covet for her... Well, let's call it 'flavor'. She's pretty much delicious. And worse yet, said power is just the promise of power. It's pretty clear she's not some Dracula or Alucard or anything near to that. Like a toddler or a lion cub, the promise of power is just that - a promise. One that had yet to be fulfilled.

        D could probably see that, as keen a hunter as he was. Or maybe he couldn't! But darn did she smell just fang-neckingly good.

        "Well, I suppose the jig is up?" She offers quietly, dusting off her knees quickly before shuffling her books into a little pile with her feet. "I am concerned by your profession. As you said. I'm a vampire. And you're a hunter." She repeats, more than a little morose at the implication. "I was worried you'd try to hunt me. But I'm fine. Really." She offers, this time her smile just as bright, but as to be expected, far more forced.

        "And... Dhampir? I'm sorry... From where I'm from there are just levels. Pureblood, Noble, Normal, Ex-Human, and..." She ticks off her fingers, before pausing. "Ferals. Level E. The only difference in an Ex-Human and a normal Vampire is that a normal one was either born that way, or was... turned, but then given the blood of their Pureblood creator." She explains.

        "I've never heard of a 'dhampir'. You..." She begins, sniffing the air, and seeming confused. "Smell sort of confusing, honestly." She admits, bashfully.

        She does not explain what level she is. This is a conscious omission.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=D
|Pose=        Humans smell to D like roast chicken must smell to a hungry human; Yuuki smells...like clean water after a desert trek. Like spring flowers after a long winter. Like all his sensory yearnings could be satisfied if she would only allow him a single sip. The longer he is in her company, the more he finds overwhelming and strange.

        Disciplined, accustomed to centuries of resisting his instinct, the Hunter says and shows nothing of his more primal struggle, continuing to show Yuuki his poor attempt at a smile. The expression by now is hardly there at all; only a glimmer to be found in the depths of his dark eyes.

        "I have no interest in hunting you, Miss Kuran. You are not of my world, and no threat to the humans I've sworn to protect. You are also my ally. I promise you, if we should ever be at conflict, it will not be because of my profession." He pauses to hear out her explanation -- and curiosity -- nodding once she is through. "I see. You are right; in my world, it's much simpler. We refer to all vampires as Nobles, and in fact refer to their species as Nobility in polite conversation. The word 'vampire' is irregularly used out of fear."

        D crosses his arms together loosely below his chest. "While I gather each type of vampire you name is so named by its age and power, the vampires on my world are not so strictly graded. The Nobility take many forms and powers. Age and strength go hand in hand, but so does purity of blood. The youngest and weakest vampires are more like mindless, bloodthirsty corpses than anything resembling you and me. There is also a distinct difference between someone who is born a vampire and someone who is made one. A dhampir is...the result of crossbreeding. Vampires long ago discovered a way to carry on their bloodlines through human union. I am the offspring of one such union."

        His human traits are buried beneath a wealth of superior vampiric gifts, but there it is, beneath the surface -- the beat of a human heart, the scent of human blood.

        "Many dhampirs forsake their human natures and live as pureblooded vampires, but many more, as I do, attempt the reverse. I am neither human nor vampire, living in a purgatory between worlds."

        How dour.

        "I will not pry too deeply into your nature, but I am curious enough to ask after your age. You appear young."

        Not that D himself appears /old/; he looks like he can't be older than his early twenties, if that.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=Yuuki Kuran
|Pose=        Yuuki notes the... Look, but also the smile. Then again, with discipline that comes from Being Vampire Hunter D, there is also the sheer fact that he's got a pokerface that makes most of the Hold 'Em champions blush, so all she gets is how insanely awkward this all is, and that he is trying to smile. So she returns it, though this cycle of smiling has to end somewhere.

        The rate this is going, that somewhere is weepy eyes and a deep frown.

        "Well... That's good." She murmurs, with a little finality, as she looks around, breaking the sustained gaze they had been locked in to find one of the library's seats. "Well... Power yes. Age is only a side-effect. The whole system only refers to purity of bloodline. A pureblood can trace an unbroken lineage all the way back to the first, ancient vampires. Every lower category is just... Less pure. Nobles have a little human blood in them, usually representing offshoot bloodlines from the pureblood clans. Normal vampires are fairly muddied, or have only been elevated by the blood of their patron. Ex-humans are just that. Level E's... Are a product of those humans, gone terribly wrong." She corrects.

        "I think your world is much more ordered in that way. Even if you are a half-breed, you can choose to represent either half, or try to live as both." She muses, quietly, before pulling out a small black case with a stylized raised pattern on the lacuqered wood, as she slides it open, before dumping a small number of white pills with tiny etched lettering on them. After popping two into her mouth and chewing, she offers the container curiously to D. "Erm... Do you still need blood?" She wonders, yet curious.

        "Oh... Well, I lived as a human for ten years, and I regained what had been sealed away a year ago so..." She counts in her head. "Seventeen or eighteen or so?" She offers, with a shrug.
}}
{{Single Pose
|Poser=D
|Pose=        The last dregs of his smile fades away. Once Yuuki is seated, D reclaims his own chair, keeping in a comfortable conversational distance but no longer so close he can't help noticing the girl's...qualities.

        He cocks a brow at the container and the pills inside. From smell alone, he guesses their purpose. "Blood? Yes. It's the only way for me to attain nourishment. Dhampirs can eat human food and drink, but gain nothing from it except a greater likelihood of fitting in with normal society." He reaches over to his hung cloak, and withdraws a tin of his own from an inner pocket. Opening it reveals a small collection of capsules containing a dry rust-colored substance.

        "These are my only true food source -- human blood, condensed, dried, and stored in capsules. Hard to come by, considering how uncommon donators can be." He snaps the tin shut, and gestures back to Yuuki's case. "I assume these are for a similar purpose?"

        D does not take one, until she distinctly offers; then, he'll take a single pill, turning it over in his hand for consideration. Eating it is done for the sake of politeness alone, but right away, he recognizes the value. Interesting.

        Returning to the previous topic -- "So, human breeding is more common on your world. I see. Well, someday I will probably be indistinct from the vampires I hunt. It is only a matter of time; all dhampirs are consumed by their bloodlust eventually."

        He says it like it's not such a big deal, talking about his own doomed fate and all.

        "You're younger than I imagined you to be. I've lived nearly four thousand years." He pauses only a beat, before almost frowning and asking, "Those tablets; you carry a great deal of them. More than I have ever owned at once. How accessible are they?"

        Yes, he's frowning now for sure, but at himself only. He's not normally so transparent.
}}