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Having been in the lair of the Spina, the salle lacks the mystery and allure that it may once have had. Not that he's been behind its glass, or knows entirely what secrets hide in what is very clearly a work of intention. But at least he knows he's going to walk out of it again with more or less absolute certainty.
This time there are actual fencing whites set out for him. And he's given the chance to change into them. Visigny, of course, wears his masters blacks. German rapiers are provided for the practice blades. Live steel, but balled at tip. The steel is high flex and will return to true fairly dependably so long as everyone's not being all frenzied about things. Visigny's been at this a while, he knows what he's doing.
Most of the first part of that practical lesson involves foot work. Literally just how to stand, at all times, with three points of balance on both feet. How to feel terrain through the soles of your shoes. How to choose shoes for terrain, even. And then on how to properly hold and present a sword. The en-garde. How to sink properly into the crouch. How and where it should burn. Why he should continue to just stand there some nights despite the burn. Until he can wake up, do it for an entire evening, go back to sleep, and suffer nothing for it but a wasted evening. How at that point, his body will know what balance is. And it will seek it the way water seeks the sea.
He demonstrates how thumb and fore and middle finger are the gross motor, and pinky and ring are the fine. How it is strike and flick. How it is stab and turn. How it is push, and up, and turn, and back again. There is a language to it all, a semaphore of motion that Visigny assures him he can learn to predict like music notes before the musician plays them. How you will be there wilth a point and a parry to confound him, when you are fluent.
A lesson of fine adjustments, of infinitessimal shifts in posture.
Vincent pants, mainly from muscle memory, at the work out, never in his life did he imagine that he'd be training to wield a blade with a master swordsmen but here he was. "So, do alot of us really still use blades, I mean, we got guns that can kill hundred within ten minutes not to mention flamethrowers, I appreciate the lesson don't get me wrong, just wondering how many of us still fight one on one like the old days?" he rubs his shoulder, "At least speed and strength come with the blood."
Visigny considers that question, and how to answer it best. Briefly, he speeds around the room, seeming to pause at four points around Vincent one by one, ending right back where he started, his rapier on his shoulder casually. "I can outrun fire. I can almost outrun bullets. The ones I can't are a nuissance to me. However, I can't outrun another one of me with one of these."
"I am perhaps not the best one to ask. Most of those who come for me come carrying one of these. Other Spina. Invictus like you from other cities with axes to grind and something to prove to some ring they want to kiss." Visigny is looking off towards the northeast as he says it, for what it's worth.
"The last one snuck into my haven, threatened my wives, mocked my Sire and my blood. The resulting combat lasted six seconds. I plunged a sword through her head and into her body and turned it so hard I had to sweep up the leftovers and mail them back to her sire with her sword and a bill for etiquette lessons. They have yet to pay up."
"Some of them will come with claws. Some will come with humans in uniforms. Some with daylight. Some with fire. Tonight, we learn what to do when they come at you with steel."
Vincent nods, "So folks will come after me with everything they got so might as well prepare." he nods, understanding both why this is useful and just how much his life will be in danger as he pisses more people off, however theirs something in his eyes at the mention of 'wives', "Hey. . .can I ask you a personal question?" he asks, easing his grip on the sword
"I genuinely believe you have earned that privilege, Mister Drake, yes." Visigny doesn't even bother making an object lesson out of it, it's just a sincere compliment.
"Thanks," he replies, "So, first part of the question. . .I understand you three call yourselves the Trio, how did you guys meet, how do you make it work?" he asks, "Feel free to give me the bullet points version of it."
He is about to launch into the remainder of the evening's talking, and Vincent wisely asks for the cliff notes. Visigny's not sure if he should be amused or offended, but he decides to chuckle about it. "We were all part of the Breakfast Club of Vienna. I was the property of the late Player Juliette Rinaldi, Annikah was the property of the late Evelyn Renner, Lancea et Sanctimonious. And of course, Artje was servant to La Generale Taire, one of the founders of the Carthian Movement."
He makes a little 'messy little rabble down there' gesture with his left hand.
"You know. We were scum. Property. Furniture. Chaise longues of the long and dull night."
"So you trauma bonded," Vincent observes, "Seen alot of people bond over that. . ." he might as well get it out of the way now, "I have a Ghoul now," he says, "A business partner, a strong, ambitious, capable," he starts to list and a tad wistfully too before he realizes where he is, "I mean. . .she has connections to high society and the criminal element, she's not my tool, she's not my servant, she's my buisness partner. . ." he says but clearly theirs more, now to see what the ex-ghoul thinks
He clearly thinks Vincent should keep talking, because he has very correctly intuited that Visigny has some real strong fucking opinions which he is keeping to himself until he hears the whole story. He makes a little prompting motion with his hand. Yes, and?
"She's clever, calls me out on my shit and short thinking and I love that," he continues, "And when I introduced her to my other partner, she focused on them, how they would be comfortable, if it bothered them she'd see me purely professionally and if Avy is ok with it, if we can all share each other," he smiles, thinking of both of them, "She's stuck in a family of idiots who only value a person with a dick so I offered her an advantage, only gave her the blood after she agreed. . .Visigny I'm in love with two people, which is two more than I ever thought I would fall for and I don't know what to do."
Visigny draws in a long slow breath before adopting a small smile. It's not unkind, exactly. "And it's not just because you drank twice at the same fountain, is it? That can happen to us, you know. I drift from infatuation to infatuation with giddy abandon. It's my blood, you see. It can't be helped. I make the most of it. But." Visigny gestures with the blade on his shoulder, pointing about the room indicatively. It drops back onto his shoulder again.
"Clearly, I also know love. Or something like love. Whatever the wretch that is Visigny may call love, that I certainly have. Because they accept me for who and what I am, Mister Drake. You correctly deduce we are bonded by trauma. But far more by our shared truths about one another. I am a monster, Mister Drake. A monster. A very polite, very cultured, very kindly deviant. And they love that about me."
"Do these two people even know you love them? I am not speaking to be cruel, Mister Drake. Merely to snap you out of it, if that's all this is. Say true? Are you a fool for love as I am, or merely a fool as I was?"
"Avery knows I love them and they love me in turn. . .Maria I don't know if she just see's me as a blood fountain with a good dick or something more but them meeting seems to have made it a. . .throuple?" he says, "At least that's what it seems be turning into. . .I know our blood makes us dependent on people but I also know what my type was before I had the blood," he chuckles, "And now I have a blond and a woman whose arguably more dangerous than me so between the two of them it's everything I ever wanted," he gives a sigh, "I think I know what your thinking, as I said I don't see her as a tool, she's my business partner, keyword partner," he puts the blade away, "I can't believe I'm doing this but your the only one I think in both my current condition and the number of people that I can ask for relationship advice."
It makes perfect sense to him, so much so that he doesn't bother with his usual airs in signaling his understanding. "Honestly, it's fine, Mister Drake. Really. We made it all up as we were going along, too. And it felt like a jazz suicide the entire time." He looks off for a moment, quite possibly remembering those days. Possibly, there's a smudge on a mirrored wall over there. One of those two things.
"Love is a word many people say and few people actually understand, Mister Drake. Love is a verb. It is a state of being, a condition you must manifest in yourself." Visigny straightens his posture and draws a hand down his front, fingers pinched together. Signalling inner poise, personal character, strength.
"Love is demonstrated, it is proved, it is not a fish on a table waiting to be made into dinner. Love harries you every night of your existence. It bites at the heels of your ambition with every fear and longing and bleak terror it can find in you. Until you wonder if, indeed, you would be better off alone. Or if all the exquisite agonies of your life are not, in fact, a pale imitation of the agonies you willingly inflict on yourself standing in the light of their sun. Love is reaching into the chest of a living person and pulling out their still beating heart before they can finish the insult forming on their lips. Just to spare your wife's ears. Love is knowing they miss another man than you, and finding his likeness in a crowd, and bringing him home. All hard and handsome and silver haired at the temples for her. And then leaving them the fuck alone, Mister Drake."
"Love is lived and walked and worn. Love and honor are the same word to those who have both. And you will die for either of them. Or by either of them. And dream of doing it with them, certainly. We should be so fortunate, you and I. As that."
"So. Tell me of your love?"
"Avery," he begins with the person he met first, "They where taken, hurt and damaged by a one eyed bastard with a viking fetish," he says, hatred and contempt oozing from every drop of his voice, "When I met them I just wanted to fish information of the Lost. . .but then Titania started acting like a bitch and I couldn't just stand their and watch, we bonded and. . .and I want to protect them, I want to be the shoulder they cry on, the pillar that supports them, I want to heal and comfort them throughout all the hurt and pain they experience, to remind them that they are loved and cherished," he says with the emotion and passion that proves they of the same clan, he starts pacing and talking with his hands now, "Maria, where Avery stirs a protector in me she lights the fire of ambition in me, with her I feel I have someone who can nurture and feed my dreams and I can do the same for her, I want to take her to the pinnacle and look upon all we can achieve together, and when I saw how she treated Avery, not as an obstacle but both respecting they had me first and adjusting to their needs. . ." he smiles brightly, "I feel like their my light and shadow and between them I can exist in perfect twilight." he exclaims
"Ah," he says with understanding. "All the Viennese fang-bangers among the lost just loved our Artje. I used to dip my teeth in their waters now and then. Spicy." Visigny's eyebrows waggle suggestively at that.
"But, yes. Sad. Very sad. Tragic. I'm very sorry for your Avery, of course." He draws in a long breath and holds it. Of course, he doesn't need to breathe again, so he ends up looking a little bloated on air for a while as he tries to sort out how to put this.
"In the end, Vincent. I am a slave to them. You see? I would do anything for them. Anything. To see them happy, to see them thrive. Anything, do you understand me? My father told me when I considered marrying my sweerheart before the war. Son, you have two choices with wives. You can be right, or you can be happy. Wise men learn when to be which. Then he patted my cheek and went back to his mistress. But! It stuck with me. Search every day for a way to make them happy. Listen to them. About their little silly concerns. And all the asanine silly details about their dull little lives. Learn to be endlessly fascinated by it. Learn to live for the droll, tedious explanations of what it was like out on the street. How the daylight was so pretty. Smile, nod your head, assure them even and especially when your black dead heart wants most to roll your eyes how fucking deeply and incredibly fortunate you are to be there sharing it with them. Humble yourself. Say you are sorry when you are not. Give things that you do not wish to part with. Sacrifice until you have nothing left. And you may keep them, Mister Drake."
"Me, I'm making the most of it. We'll see how it wears on you, I suppose. Or if you're just playing jokes on yourself and ruining the lives of two creatures who don't deserve it. Shall we wager?"
Vincent listens intently. . .and grins at the word wager, "I understand, leave it to the frenchman to be the one with love advice, I wager I'll beat the odds, with both Avery and Maria, with them I'll be the man they both deserve, even if I'm lying my ass off." he chuckles, "Honestly, I never thought I deserved to be happy with one person let alone two. . .you ever feel like you don't deserve to be where you are?"
To that, Visigny just begins cackling. Just a rich, full throated belly laugh. Rich, baritone, bright. Truly, truly, truly hilarious laughter. Something Vincent just said in there was absolutely fucking hilarious to Visigny, in a very genuine way.
"Oh, my dear Mister Drake. Every moment. Every day. I tapdance on a tight rope, my friend. Revel in it."
Vincent/Thespis/Edward-ET — Yesterday at 3:55 PM
"Thanks for the art help by the way, any job I can do in return?"
"Possibly, Mister Drake. Possibly. Don't worry, I am not the sort to hold boons over people's heads. I am quite Carthian about it all. I've done you a favor no greater than I would perform for any member of the movement. The task I ask you to perform when I ask you to perform it will be of a similar sort. Something entirely within your wheelhouse, fully in the capability of your expertise, almost entirely safe from all risk unless you decide to bring that risk yourself. A true gentleman's favor, nothing more. So don't let it weight on you too much."
There's a beat, as it occurs to him.
"Is your covenant giving you guff for being in hoc to a Carthian? If it's politically risky to you, I will come up with something soon. That wasn't the purpose of the exercise. It was to work at establishing our working relationship."
"I haven't been given shit on it yet and as far as I'm concerned if their so worried about it then they should have been showing me the ropes more," he shrugs, "That being said, I don't think I'll be leaving the Invictus anytime soon, I deeply admire you good sir however I've been drawn to the siren song of wealth and power since I was breathing, even have selected a sphere of influence as a power base," he hints, "That being said, I don't see anything wrong with, and keep in mine I'm a long way off to being your equal, a friendly rivalry between the aisles as it where." he says, "Like you said when we met, we're two sides of the same coin and in this city at least we can afford to be civil."
"No, no," Visigny says, wagging a hand dismissively. "I'm not trying to recruit you. It's simply precisely like your peers to whinge at you having more fun than they are." He spins his rapier off his shoulder gayly, like he might a cane for a barber shop routine.
"And you are having fun, aren't you, Mister Drake? Try not to think to much about the future where I am concerned. I have nothing but your immediate best interests at heart, I assure you. In all likelihood, Mister Drake, we will have moved on again by the time you are coming into your power. But, sure. If you'd like to break your teeth on my gorget, you're welcome to give it a try when the time comes."
Vincent laughs, "I am having fun," he admits, "And I'd like to keep my teeth, I need my winning smile." he admits, taking the blade again, "I do have a question however that only you can answer, Wright and Titania can't," he makes a motion with the blade, asking for another go with the swords, "What's it mean to be a Daeva?"
"The better question, Mister Drake, is what does it mean to be a Daeva to you. I am a cat, and I am a snake. I am a seducer, and a charmer, and a teller of ugly truths with pretty little bows. Everything I do, I do to inspire. My own muse is a shriveled, wretched, ugly thing now. I paint in blood, if I paint with anything at all. But I am a muse in my own right. A patron of arts, a lover of pleasures, a purveyor of artful pain and sinful suffering. It's sucking the devil's dick with your hand up an angel's skirts. It's power, danger, entertainment, adventure. You?"
That question leaves Vincent thinking, what he's been told of his Clan paints a picture of debauched hedonists, something he and Visigny, while both clearly enjoy their separate pleasures, are neither a Caligula as it where, "I love pleasure, but then again who doesn't," he begins, "Sex is something I view as tool, weapon, pleasure, and intimate experience, it just depends who the partner is at the moment, am I using it to gain dirt, to feel good, to manipulate, or to be one in body and mind with someone, all depends on the person," he explains, "I love information, dirty little secrets and the more it's clearly not meant for my ears the more I want to know, so I guess you can say information is my art," he continues, "I want to make others feel good, I want to know that I'm what's causing their pleasure and they desire me but maybe that's narcissism," he shrugs, "And at the end of the day, the sound of the city soothes me but I'm finding that's a Scion thing."
"Sorry, I wasn't listening, I was staring at my hair in the mirror," Visigny jokes on the heels of it maybe being narcissism. "I think, perhaps, Mister Drake? You need to figure out your morality. What truly matters to you. Right and wrong are rarely the same as legal and illegal. Good and bad are differing points of view, often not aligning at all save in the opinions of later historians. And I am in the middle of it all, my dear dear boy. Dancing in the shit of it. You will find your own path, your own way. But I would not spend too long railing against the wishes of your blood. I would find a way to channel those wishes into something you can control. Before they control you. You might talk to that... ehm. Maria? Was it? She may not have good ideas, but you'll at least be distracted by them for a few evenings." He shrugs.
"Morality," he chuckles, "That's. . .something I've been running from for years and seems to be catching up closer and closer every time I turn back to see it," he comments, "I thank you for the talks, truly, and trust me, I'll try to apply my own code to my work," he then blinks, realizing something and laughs, "Maybe with your lessons I can become a true gentlemen thief."
Vincent will realize at some point that Visigny has begun to make jokes with Vincent regularly. It's likely he has unlocked some new level of esteem in his life wherein the jokes come without cattiness and cruelty behind them.
Except for now, when it is also obviously a parting tease. "Well. Let's not get too ambitious, shall we?" It ends with a grin and a chuckle. "Though it would please me greatly. I should, however, see to feeding before my darlings come home to roost. It's been a pleasure having you visit as always, Mister Drake. My compliments to your Avery and Maria."
"It's been a pleasure and I well pass it." he gives a polite bow as he starts to take his leave, becoming more at ease with each visit to the warehouse, they seem nice enough, why would people be scared of the Trio. . .right?
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