Irritation

Sheriff's Estate - Isobel's Room


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will_icon.jpg isobel_icon.jpg

A peaceful night in the estate, little traffic passing through the Vault, though the denizens of the deep downstairs are clearly about their business. One such takes quiet, measured steps down the stairs, pausing briefly before a change of mind occurs. Dressed in customary black, the King of Texas lifts a hand to tap gently against a door. The door of the Sheriff, no less.

The Sheriff had a busy night previous. A little hunt, a little mayhem, plenty of blood and debauchery.
She has been cleaning up since then, having left Marius to his own devices after waking. When she opens the door, she's in naught but a towel. Her hair a mess. Slightly blood-streaked. A piece of entrails or viscera dangling down from the hair above her left ear.
"Majesty. What can I do for you this eve?"

The smell assaults nostrils, but iron control keeps Will's features impassive. "I am here," says he, "to seek an olive branch that I misplaced a little while ago." His tone calm and gentle. His head tilts slightly; he does not seem to notice the gore. "To seek discussion on a matter of some import."

Stepping away from the door, she catches a glimpse of herself in one of the many mirrors she has. The gory mess is removed with ease, and tossed onto a pile of towels in the corner. Moving toward the chair she takes a seat. "Come in."
There is little else said. Isobel still maintains a little ire which is no doubt flowing through the bond they share.
"Whatever you wish to discuss, Majesty, I am your most humble servant and will listen."

"You are still irritated," Will states, simply, "and I despise the knowledge that it is of my creation." He takes a long moment to follow Isobel with only his eyes, two steps carrying him in to the room. "The girl. She is related, direct line to her sister." The 'her' carrying enough emphasis to leave no doubt as to who. "I will not allow her to come between us, Isobel."

"Congratulations. You can now have a new child of her line. You must feel very happy about that." Isobel has no emotion on her face. Expression locked into an icy stare. There is much running through the bond though. The irritation obvious, the disappointment. "Marius cared for the city well in my absence," she notes seemingly idly.

A touch of movement at Will's lips would prove his own sudden flash of irritation for such a response. Still, it fades under iron control. "Should you wish to simply level irritable response at me, I am able to stand quietly," says he, "but if you wish to listen to my offer, to the olive branch I bring to you, then I will continue." His eyes lock to hers. "Your choice."

"Irritable? Hardly, your Majesty. It was a purely honest response." Which it was. Even if there was irritation below the surface. Isobel idly motions to the couch, but refuses to meet his eyes though he tries to catch them. "What is it that you offer, my liege?"

"Though your lips and voice may lie to me," Will tells her, with an explanatory tone, "your mind cannot. I hardly feel that the girl will make a useful addition to our line." Though the blood is good. He continues to keep his eyes looking for hers, though he does not move towards the motioned couch. "On your decision, should you choose to make it, I will kill her."

"So that you can loathe me for the decision for the remainder of our lives?" Isobel is not stupid. She is well aware that should she request it, he will do it. Then either do away with her or send her away. "You could not kill her even if you wished to. She looks too much like her." There is no way he would be able to kill Ysolde twice.

"I will not despise you," he replies, "nor do I appreciate your attempts to throw words into my mouth." Still calm, still gentle. "Though if your suggestion is correct, how do you intend that you rid yourself of this anger?"

There is a dark look to Isobel's eyes when she finally meets his. "I have been finding ways of letting it out a little at a time." A smirk touches her lips briefly, then her expression is back to neutral. "Do not worry, your Majesty. I would not dream of touching her. After all, you have ordered me to stay away and I have."

The elder vampire merely looks at Isobel, the look in her eyes too familiar for comfort. "The anger does not become you. I seek peace and resolution and you would rather cast it in my face. Accept this advice. Do not fall to the monster, and do not let a petty mortal come between you and your Maker." He does not yet move. "Finally, do not consider me too weak to obliterate that which would damage my relationship with the only family I possess."

"You have Marius and his Child. You have the annoying librarian." The 'anger' is there. It will fade eventually, perhaps. "I was unaware that mentioning I have stayed away from the wench was throwing it back into your face, your Majesty." Yet there is no apology for doing so. "I have never once considered you weak, but I know you, Valentine. You would not so easily kill an innocent just to keep me calm. That is the exact path that the Queen said you should stay clear of."

"Suggesting I would feel happy about a new member of her line as mine own is throwing it back at my face, child," Will says, voice rising a little with heat. His own frustration is starting to colour their mental link, fueled by her apparent lack of a wish to reconcile. "Then do not force me to it," he says, purest ice and chilly darkness to his voice and demeanour. "I will not lose you, Isobel. Not again, and not for any creature. No matter the cost."

"Then tell me that you had not thought of it. That you had not thought of Ysolde when you looked at this girl." Isobel raises from the chair if only to take a more firm stance against him. "I have no power to force your hand at anything, your Majesty." Child of his she may be, but she is not all that powerful. Nor has she made the request.

"Of course her face brought my Maker to mind," Will replies, "but I maintain control. I do not allow myself to be mastered by emotion; instead I master it in turn." Not a rebuke; not quite. A wry, dry smile touches at his lips now, as he continues to keep attention locked to her own. "Then you are more powerful than you know, Isobel. Be aware. Be wary."

"Do you?" Isobel has to wonder about that sometimes. She will never say so aloud, however. But he would not be here if he was not mastered by some emotion, by some need to hold onto his Child. "That is foolishness. I have no power over anyone save my own Child." Even then there is very little power she exerts over anyone. "You will be showing this breather the images you have of Ysolde," she points out. "I have overheard Erica making the plans for you."

"I do my utmost," Will replies, levelly, allowing his dry smile to flit back once more. "Not even I am perfect," he allows. His head shakes. "I speak not of particular immortal power, but other that perhaps you understand not. The mortal deserves opportunity to see the truth of the matter, especially considering young Mischa's inadvertant efforts to terrify her."

Isobel watches him silently. There seems to be nothing for her to say for a long while, or she is carefully weighing her words. "Explain yourself." It is said so neutrally that it could be construed as an order, yet it seems more a question. "The mortal in question deserves nothing from you, your Majesty. She will be another sychophant like that librarian."

"Your power, your true power, lies in your strength to gain allies, to bring those who have met you before to your side, to bring them close to you," Will tells her. "Myself, Marius, amongst those who would come to your aid in any situation. Even the Queen of another State whom it would seem asks you for favours. That is your power, Isobel." He shakes his head. "Chloe is no sycophant; she will prove a loyal ally to me and to you. The girl deserves exactly what I give her, and take from her. A measure of completeness to a long-ago death."

"I did not bring you to my side. I did not bring Marius to my side. Ours was a chance meeting, and Marius figured you might have need of him." Thus Isobel herself had nothing to do with anything. The Queen she will never understand except for the fact that she may be lonely and in search of friends. "I think you believe I have more power than I do." Icy blues shift toward him and she makes a noise of displeasure. "You owe nothing to that bitch, or her whelps." Ysolde and her descendants that is.

"We are both here, still here, with you our closest ally. An integral part of the circle that keeps this city from anarchy and unrest. Without you, we would be weaker, much weaker." Lips purse slightly, and Will shakes his head, just a fraction. "Quite what did she do to you?" he asks, searchingly, a serious question. "She forced me to live a lie for centuries, obliterated my reputation and my life for her only selfish needs, yet even I do not bear the same animosity."

"Yet you would both survive without me. You believe you would be weaker, but I do not think that would be the case." With Marius as Sheriff, Will's kingdom would be much stronger. Isobel has not the stomach for handling some of the things necessary the position. "Years of torture. Years of jealousy. Of keeping me away from the one thing that was making me hold onto life. Forcing me out of the only home I had known for eighty years, whilst informing you that I was dead. Leaving me on my own to suffer and nearly die at the same hands as those who took the life of Jeanne D'Arc."
Isobel has done well for herself since then, but she is and was a woman who was grievously hurt by another.

A hand wafts. "Such decisions are my judgement to make," he dismisses, "and since you are incorrect, perhaps it is best that they are." A faint attempt at humour there, weak as it is.

Will allows a slow nod for Isobel's speech. "A vicious individual indeed. I apologise that I have never gone to effort to discover the full truth before. Would you prefer not to discuss it further, or to explain?" Finally, his eyes drop to the floor, albeit briefly. "I did not know you were linked with the martyr. I should learn more of you."

"It is no matter. It is my anger, my cross to bear." She's carried it for centuries, there is no point in sharing the burden now. Isobel reaches up to remove something that looks like a piece of ear from the front of the towel, then tosses it to the corner as well. "Jeanne D'Arc was a good friend. She was a telepath, which is where she believed she heard the voice of God. I was there at the Siege of Compiegne. I tried to save her from being tried and burned as a heretic, but I was unable to for fear of making my nature known."

Will listens with interest, allowing a further nod. "Then telepaths are no recent invention; this is the oldest that I am aware of." Always business, silly man. He does allow a smile. "My own blood, a friend of the burnt martyr herself. A shame you could not save her, but a true Christian for the attempt. Too many I knew went to the fire." Templars of old.

To Isobel it was a great shame. Jeanne was a true friend around the French Court to which she was sent to die, and she would have liked to have saved the woman. "The only recourse would have been to turn her, but then we both would have died in that fire." Which will make her sound selfish, yet it was more just survival instinct. "There have been telepaths before that, I am certain. The Oracles of Delphi."

"An action which would have seen you both destroyed, and useless. Better to have one that remembers than another death of futile meaning." His head shakes once more as he starts to consider the discussion possible here. "There can be no certainty. Only those present can speak, and Tanwen refuses. She is the oldest I know. The Oracles were more likely witches of some form."

"Witches that can prophesy the future?" Isobel considers. "Clairvoyants possibly." Tanwen is perhaps right to not speak of such things that would change the course of human history and let onto more of the supernaturals being in the public eye. "I am still upset with you, Valentine. You should have told me first, instead of keeping it from me and having it sprung on me by a damnable twin-souled."

"Witches, seers, call them as you wish," says Will, with a nod, becoming more animated and letting fingers begin tapping against his leg. "Said Queen is case in point." This is clearly a subject he has spent much, much time considering and looking into. Suddenly he stops, looks up toward Isobel and that same dry, wry smile comes back once more. "You are correct. I intended to inform you once the dossier was complete, which it now is. I apologise."

"Accepted." There is still irritation there, though it is less at him and more directed at the twin-souled and the woman that is the spitting image of his Maker. Still, Isobel will keep her distance, as commanded to. "You need not have commanded me to leave her unharmed." A glance down through the towel shows that there are no more pieces of dead breather on her person.
"You can make up for this by helping me wash the blood from my hair."

"At the time, I was uncertain," says Will, "and could not allow innocence to be harmed needlessly. It was not pleasant." He steps further into the room now, lifting hands towards her. "In return, you can tell me everything you knew about Jeanne D'Arc. Come." A hand held forward; an offer of touch.

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