More vampires

[winter]

I threw it up for fyrie last night, so might as well share it here: Warsaw!Vampires promotional clip.

It's mostly Polish voiceovers and actors and director blathering, but there's a fair bit of Totale Finsternis at the end, and in the middle there's Dziedzic blathering on (and basically being all clueless and "I have NO idea what you're asking me. Let me quote lyrics at you, since I'm totally obsessed ATM" - I can relate) while the images show him singing Unstillbare Gier and crawling over graves. Mmmm. 53 days until I see him again. Argh.

Oh, and an update for anyone interested in seeing that despite how airheaded it makes me: according to Michael Kunze ♥ in the 2006/2007 season Tanz will be still playing in Warsaw, in the autumn it will premiere in Budapest, and there'll be another German production, possibly in Berlin.

I've been playing my various Tanz bits for two hours straight now. There's a very wide smile on my face. There may be vampire fic later. Right now, need to go off and scribble "Grafin von Krolock" all over my story notebook.

Comments

*drops and runs to work*

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Standing on the balcony, arms folded over her chest, Dawn stared unseeing at the sun-washed landscape in front of her. It was getting closer to evening and she could feel the chill in the air as the sky started to change colours.

Behind her, in the shelter of the room, she knew he was watching her. Something told her he had been watching her in ways she didn’t understand since the minute she arrived.

“They will find you,” he murmured finally.

“Been here a week,” Dawn replied, shivering slightly. “I thin I can find more places to hide than they can look.”

“But do you wish to go on hiding?”

Dawn sighed, looking down at the balustrade in front of her. She reached out to flick a loose piece of stone away. “I... I just want to have some time away from them,” she said quietly. “Didn’t realise it until I got here.”

“You feel smothered by them,” the Graf’s voice was quiet, mellifluous.

“And you keep on sticking your nose in my head,” Dawn retorted with half-hearted annoyance. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I know I’m the baby, I’m not a kid anymore.” She saw him nod. Her fingertips pressed against the worn stone. “Haven’t been since I saw Buffy die.”

Standing on the edge of the slice of daylight that cut across the floor of the room, von Krolock gazed at her. “Have you told her?”

“What? That seeing my big sister and the only family had left killing herself to save me, her non-sister’s life, messed me up a bit?” Laughing bitterly, Dawn shook her head and looked away. “How do you say that?” She shuddered a little, as if seeing something replay behind her eyes. “Seeing anyone die is enough to make you grow up real fast, but when it’s your fault...”

“It was a decision she made,” von Krolock observed quietly, skirting the daylight and approaching the anti-solar glass. “Would you have done the same, were you in her place?”

Reluctantly, Dawn nodded, looking away from him. “Yeah, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t still have nightmares about it,” she said quietly. “Mom was bad enough, then Buffy... Tara... Spike too.” Her smile was fainter. “Started to wonder if it was me. Wondered if people died because I loved them.”

Von Krolock didn’t move and, on the opposite side of the glass, his grave expression didn’t change, but something... felt different about the way he was looking at her.

Looking away from him, trying to push down the emotion she had been trying to fight since Buffy had arrived, she squeezed her eyes shut. “I must sound like such a kid,” she muttered, “Sulking about how people kept dying around me and leaving me. Not like they wanted to.”

“It was no more your fault than the sun’s rising,” His voice washed over her in a soothing wave and she felt the heat of tears on her cheeks. Covering her face with her hand, she bit down on her lip to stifle any sound. “Miss Summers...”

“I’m good,” she whispered, the lie sour in her throat.

“You need not pretend, dear child.”

Dawn laughed weakly. “Why not? Everyone else does.” She turned to look at him, uncaring of the faint streaks of mascara she knew she had smeared. “I’m just a normal kid working at a normal institute and have a normal life.”

His dark eyes gazed solemnly at her. “You should not be forced to live their lies,” he said quietly. “Your life is your own.”

“And what am I meant to do?” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Come and live here and pretend you aren’t a blood-sucking fiend and tell Buffy that... that I feel more at home here than anywhere?”

“Is that what you feel?”

Lowering her eyes, Dawn nodded. “Better than being surrounded by Slayers all the time,” she said so quietly it was barely audible. “You don’t make me pretend that everything is normal and fine.”

Re: *drops and runs to work*

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

“You would be welcome,” von Krolock sounded so sincere that she looked up at him incredulously. He stepped closer to the glass. “But no pretending. I am not a mortal gentleman. You are not merely a lackey of the council.” He gazed at her through the tinted panel. “We would be what and who we are.”

“You’re a killer,” she said quietly, approaching the glass.

“I am.”

She held his gaze willingly, brow creased with thought. “You have no soul.”

“None.”

“Given the chance, you’ll probably kill me eventually and turn me into one of you,” she murmured, unfolding her arms.

Von Krolock slowly nodded. “It is likely,” he admitted, “Though it would not be without regret.”

Dawn smiled slightly, sadly. “I’d like to see you try it,” she murmured. She looked down, then back up at him. “I always thought I wanted a normal life, y’know. A life without demons and vampires and death and everything.”

“And now?”

“Now?” She lifted her hand and pressed it to the sun-warmed glass. “Now, I know I never could.”

Re: *drops and runs to work*

[winter]

Dawn makes so much sense here. It figures that Buffy (never emotionally the smartest cookie in the bunch) and guilt-ridden Giles would try to keep her "innocent" and baby her when the horse has long left the barn.

And oh, he's being so serious. As if he was proposing marriage or something ;)

Re: *drops and runs to work*

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

This is after a week of him and her having random conversations. Plus, normally, she keeps up the chipper facade because she doesn't want the emotionally-whacked Buffy to get upset, but since VK can already see beyond it, she doesn't need to hide it from him.

Did I mention I have a new OTP? :D

Re: *drops and runs to work*

[winter]

Now you've got me wondering whether he started with the sensual part already, or is he trying to get her mind first ;) I assume Herbert's busy distracting Spike?

*waves OTP flag*

Re: *drops and runs to work*

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming a little of both. I've changed it so she's been there three weeks, instead of just the one and VK has been doing his thing - he intrigues her, so when she has a moment, she goes looking for him and they talk, then she pretends she wasn't all that interested, trots away, but the next night, she's back again.

He's actually being fairly restrained and not filling her head with wacky dreams. If anything, he's actually toned her nightmares down a bit for her, which is as much a surprise to him as to anyone. And when he does have a rummage in her noggin, it's not so much invasive as a quick surface skim.

(Herbert's saying he's got Spike tied up with somethign important ;D)

Re: *drops and runs to work*

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

“And now?”

“Now?” She lifted her hand and pressed it to the sun-lit glass. “Now, I know I never could live with it.” She watched the faint smear of condensation spread around her fingers. “I’ve seen too much to ever be just a normal girl.”

“And you would choose to live with vampires, the very things your sister has fought for so long?”

She shrugged. “Can’t see me fitting in at any school anywhere,” she mumbled, one side of her mouth rising as she added, “Unless it was Hogwarts.” Her eyes lifted to him. “You could teach me more than any of them, I bet.”

The smile that touched his lips was so soft, so unlike his usual grave expression, that she found herself returning it.

His hand rose and was placed against the glass, palm-to-palm with hers.

“If that is your wish, Dawn,” he said, his eyes holding hers.

It was the first time she could recall him using her forename and she was startled by how much it pleased her.

Without hesitation, she nodded, then gasped as his fingers slid through the surface of the glass as if it were water. Threading between hers, his fingers brushed softly against the back of her palm and he drew her through the glass.

“Then stay,” he said softly.