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The castle is cold.
Hot fires rage in the rooms that see the most use, but the heat is quickly absorbed by the chill stone of the walls, drinking it down like blood as the cold wind whispers through the cracks in the windows and make the curtains shiver and twist.
It is all incredibly melodramatic, thinks Havelock with resigned disdain.
The days go by, and the weather doesn't become any less dramatic - the day the sun shines bright and pale onto the brilliantly frosted landscape is a kind of change, but not exactly pleasant for a new vampire - and he can't help but feel it isn't quite real.
Ankh-Morpork is possibily the sewer of the Disc, but it is filled with life, and real problems and people. So is the bar, in it's own fantastical way.
His lessons are going well, but he is beginning to feel restless.
Hot fires rage in the rooms that see the most use, but the heat is quickly absorbed by the chill stone of the walls, drinking it down like blood as the cold wind whispers through the cracks in the windows and make the curtains shiver and twist.
It is all incredibly melodramatic, thinks Havelock with resigned disdain.
The days go by, and the weather doesn't become any less dramatic - the day the sun shines bright and pale onto the brilliantly frosted landscape is a kind of change, but not exactly pleasant for a new vampire - and he can't help but feel it isn't quite real.
Ankh-Morpork is possibily the sewer of the Disc, but it is filled with life, and real problems and people. So is the bar, in it's own fantastical way.
His lessons are going well, but he is beginning to feel restless.
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Date: 2010-03-12 01:31 am (UTC)From:"Mathter Goodfellow," Igor says in exasperation. (Puck and Havelock had agreed, some days into his stay at the castle, that 'Robin Goodfellow' was as safe a name as any other and safer than most.)
"What?" Puck replies, with perfect innocence.
Igor, meanwhile, stumps fretfully about the castle library with an armful of books, replacing them on shelves with the occasional aid of a stepladder.
"You mutht remember," he sighs, with the sort of droning dullness of one who does not expect an oft-repeated lesson to be taken to heart, "that while you are a guetht in thith cathtle--"
He shoots Puck a look. The fairy regards him with a too-bright smile, hands clasped decorously in his lap. Igor rolls his eyes and abandons that line of reasoning.
"Thuffithe it to thay," he concludes, "that my mithtreth ith very particular about the way her bookth are kept. And about everything elthe."
Puck blinks, slowly.
"... Oh," he says.
"Is she?"
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Date: 2010-03-12 10:51 pm (UTC)From:Havelock shudders at the command, but doesn't break away, teeth still locked on the woman's throat until a strong hand grips his hair, pulling him away and breaking the flow of hot blood. She staggers when he releases her abruptly, skin very pale under her modest peasant's dress, but expression dreamy and untroubled even as she slumps down against the wall. He shakes himself, trying half-heartedly to pull away from Margolotta's hand.
The bloodlust is fading faster than before now, but still only once he has stopped drinking - been forced to stop.
(The woman is not dying, he can tell. Though weak, she will recover- but it should not have gone that far.)
Havelock presses the back of his hand against his mouth, and nods once. Margolotta releases his hair and then smooths it down again, oddly gentle.
He shivers, even though his skin feels warm for once, alive and prickling with sensation.
"How do you do it?" he asks, hearing his voice come out rough and shaking.
"Practise," comes the silken answer. "Nothing comes immediately, my boy, you should know that. At least you are not trying to tear my head from my shoulders vhen I interrupt you any more, hmm?"
He rather wishes at times that he did. It would be stupid and counterproductive, but a way to channel the rush of heat and need - and yes, anger still.
It's taking too long.
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Date: 2010-03-14 10:01 am (UTC)From:First it's the books-- conservative misplacements. They could almost, almost be absentminded-- a history among the biographies, an art history among the philosophy, etcetera. A desk lamp moves to another table, upsetting the not-exactly-feng-shui of the place; a few artful cobwebs are artlessly swept behind the door.
Puck can afford to play a game such as this.
After all, they've all got time.
It is, in fact, exactly a week before he moves his attack to the halls, strategically targeting those well away from the room that houses the coffins. Despite Igor's best efforts, the cobwebs simply will not gather; it's almost as if someone were brushing them away in secret, when he's not looking. It is even his private suspicion that in some of the more distant hallways, several of the portraits have been moved around.
It is because of these preoccupations that Igor does not immediately notice the theft of one of Lady Margolotta's sweaters.
(Puck really does think the bats are tacky.)
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Date: 2010-03-14 11:14 am (UTC)From:Clothes go into the wardrobe, and he straightens the bedclothes absently - occasionally while Puck is still in them; puts books away the instant he is done with them, even when he has made a note to check back for something later.
It's very peculiar.
All the same, when he starts finding books on the wrong shelf, and furniture shifted illogically - he leaves it be. The niggling sense of wrongness is more than countered by the desire to smile.
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Date: 2010-03-15 08:36 pm (UTC)From:Puck has spent five years growing accustomed to Havelock's moods, his expressions in all their scarcely-tangible vicissitudes, and so perhaps he fares better than he might in knowing when Havelock is troubled now. The shadowed look in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders and his jaw, as if his teeth were a trap he is determined not to let spring shut.
It's at times like these that Puck knows to break out the gossamer.
... Gossamer, if you were not aware, has quite a strength to it, particularly when its strands are spun thickly enough to make a proper rope. Puck finds it quite a fitting use for Margolotta's cobwebs.
Havelock yields to the binding well enough-- it has long been a game between them, one among any number of others, but now of course there is call for it more pressing than there ever was before. Puck leans close and places a kiss to Havelock's shoulder, the skin paler and tenser underneath-- sometimes Havelock will strain or lunge or give a reflexive snap, but there is almost a relief in it, a release. (He seems a little embarrassed by it all the same, and Puck never mentions it afterwards even in passing.)
"Shhhh, shhh," he whispers, lips closing soft and wet over the shell of Havelock's ear and slender fingers stroking through his hair.
"Still, my heart."
He will be careful how he touches him, how he permits himself to lie tangled up beside him afterwards. Puck used to imagine that the lee of Havelock's body was the only harbor he could require-- but he must admit that this notion, like so many of his others, was doomed to shipwreck from the start.
Still, he is in love. There is little helping that.
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Date: 2010-03-23 10:57 pm (UTC)From:"I don't suppose you can tell me the meaning of this," she says, with coolly and carefully cultivated amusement.
Puck turns, slowly.
In her hands, Margolotta is holding up what was, in all likelihood, once a very lovely cardigan. Now, however, it looks a little as if a dog has been at the collar and eaten all the bats, after dragging it through the mud and quite possibly rolling around on it.
Puck blinks.
"Oh my," he says.
A beat.
"Do you think it might be a moth?"
Margolotta smiles.
"I thought you might say somezing like that. Vhat troublesome creatures moths can be, wouldn't you say?"
She sighs, glancing to the ruined cardigan.
"I shall have to iron this."
Puck blinks.
Neutrally.
Margolotta spares him a smile that is really-- he feels-- very nasty.
... He admits he may have gone a little far this time.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-24 10:25 pm (UTC)From:He also accepts that he may be trying to distract himself with self-analysis.
It would be better if he focused on his training really, he thinks, ducking a sideways slash of Lady Margolotta's rapier. But what kind of politician can't carry more than one line of thought at once?
There comes an irritated snort from his opponent. "Boy, do you think shirts are disposable?"
Hmm, she had indeed nicked him. It isn't worth the thought, as it would have been before. Instinct is the key to fighting like this. It could also be his downfall, if he forgets to think. It's just one more thing to learn - the difference between a wound he can shrug off, and one that could incapacitate him long enough to be killed.
Possibly.
He's a little fuzzy on that score.
He will ask about it this morning, when Margolotta stops pushing him physically, and will talk to him like a fond and friendly relative again.
(He hates being patronised so, but can't help but find it amusing, even without Puck to mimic her after she has retired. The memory is enough to balance his new tendency towards darker fury when he gets frustrated with his lack of progress.)
He is improving every day, he can grudgingly tell. Margolotta will not tell him when she thinks he will be ready, but he thinks he will know.
It's enough.