winter | And on the topic of vampire musicals...

He was off doing Order-overlord-type-stuff, which meant he wasn't around as much as he could have been. He's still around a lot more than VK would like him to be, but some things, you have to suffer for the cause.

Mine too, but it doesn't mean he won't dislike some aspects of the way Draculea handled his dad. He hates anyone hurting his old man, even when he's small, so there's always going to be that grudge there, because he realises he was the bargaining chip. That's why he's so willing to risk his neck to help dad get his own back and take out some of Draculea's less-loyal-but-very-useful minions. Not much of a blow to strike, but its something.

Same as mine, then. And I assume you're also going with opium as his downfall? ;)

*nods* That makes sense. For my Herbert, the vampire thing is just so natural, except for one moment (his attack on Draculea), he's never, ever scared of it as a concept. He's quietly assertive and doesn't let himself be ordered around too much (I really need to write that last scene for the debut fic), but on the whole, Draculea and his quest gives both him and VK a purpose in life.

It's probably the easiest way to go for him. Especially after seeing the Dracula that showed up in Buffy-verse (and Spike's still grumbling that "the bugger owes me 12 quid").

I think that's the big difference - my Herbert still remembers a time when dad used to take him out by daylight. He used to get lifted up in front of dad on the horse and get taken for rides across their land and he loved it. Dad was so often busy with research and work, but on nice days, he would always make time for his boy.

I need to watch that episode in full sometime ~_~

Yes, those memories of human happiness would make a great difference. My Herbert doesn't remember his childhood pre-vampires, but if he did it would be VK clinging to him whenever the visions assailed him, Izabela's weekly brusque visits, and how quiet the castle was every time Johannes and Izabela clashed. I think this unhappiness is the reason both my boys are much happier than yours about being vampires ;)

Oh, Herbert would like to make it known that he loves being a vampire. He just misses lying in the sun and kissing his lover's freckles. And this tells me he had a lover who wasn't Draculea pre-turning, but he's being coy about it. He has his little weakness and fond memories.

Plus, I think my VK was older when he was turned, wasn't he? Or that depends on which VK you're writing. Roses-wise, he was younger than my Vienna!Krolock, I think...

Just one lover? ;) My Herbert just snorted and is trying to make a list, but running out of space on an A3 sheet.

Roses!VK was - 34, I think, almost 35 (born in October 1588). He didn't get along with his parents at all, since the imperiousness and pride is hereditary, so he spent almost 15 years gallivating all over Europe and learning stuff. Came home when his dad died, met Izabela at the first local party he attended, married her within three months and she got pregnant during the honeymoon...

He's made a face that his counterpart is so immature :D He says there were some, but he's not about to give details. Spike says he thinks the boy has a concussion :D

So Carpe!VK was just a couple of years older, but had been married and settled down longer. And knowing my luck, I'll get the family back-story when trying to sleep tonight...

My Herbert's rolling his eyes. It's not his fault people fell over for him all the time, and he needed some entertainment since the actual studying was so boring. Making people break themselves, morally, mentally and physically, over his attention filled the time.

That would make Carpe!VK about 46? That fits his looks and behaviour, I think :)

*snickers* That's something they agree on - studying was terribly dull. However, scholars were very, very intriguing creatures.

About that, yes :D And with the fabulous silver hair, it works nicely :)

Some scholars, yes. I think Herbert had a nemesis, an old-as-dust professor who remembered a certain dark-haired rebel who used to blow up the medical labs every week like clockwork...

Uh-huh. And for my VK, 34's probably the limit for no silver in his hair, especially with his Tartar genes from his mother :)

I think VK and the Missus on this end had been married about 5 years when she got pregnant. They'd tried for years, so it came as a surprise, so VK was already an old father by the standards of the people close at hand. Most his age would have had an heir and several spares by this point. And then, Elisabeth finds out she's pregnant and...

Pardon me, I have to go and kill a mortal!VK, thank you.

*hands you the can of Raid*

It works. See that dead body of an 18-year-old slightly sooty medicine student?

Um.

Vampire!VK has taken his mortal self under his protection and is glaring at me. I don't think he wants Lise (and, oh goodie, 'their great love') to be neglected.

*snickers vindictively*

I'm feeling rather smug about the fact Iza was too love-and-hate for VK to want to revisit that period of his life. Mostly because their great romance consisted of her digging in her claws and dragging him to the altar.

*grumbles* Transpires that Johannes' mother was still alive when VK fell for Lise and disapproved of her son marrying someone who was not exactly as young as some of the meat on the market. (Dad had died some time before, which is why Johannes had the title and thus, was Elgible Bachelor #1 at many parties. He hated the fuss so much)

Elisabeth, while a tough little thing herself, was still a tad bit upset by this, because no matter what she did, her mother-in-law disliked her. Even moreso when she couldn't get pregnant. And even when she did get pregnant, Madam VK Senior just sniffed and said a younger person would have been better.

After Lise's death, she starts looking for fresher meat, but VK actually turns on her and tells her he won't marry again. She calls him all manner of rude things and is generously, a heinous bitch of a mother, who is all about position and station.

*raises an eyebrow* Sounds a lot like my VK's dad. What happened to her, incidentally?

And my VK tells me his dad's one defiance of social norms was marrying a Transylvanian girl entirely ineligible for a Graf of the Empire, especially with her Tartar looks. He made up for that by being such an incredible git, up to and including locking VK up when he wouldn't give up on the "nonsense" of having visions. (Mommy let VK out, though. Rather a reasonable lady.)

VK says he wishes he could say it was something dramatic and assassin-related. Preferably with sharp implements. But it was initially just a mundane spring fever, which weakened her when Lise was still alive, and that was a precursor of the bout of pneumonia that finally did her in about six months after Lise went.

His dad was the nicer one of the parents. He was so used to being of his station that it didn't bother him so, but the Psycho Mother's family had married up in the world and she was determined not to let her newly upgraded ilk sink again.

I could see your VK spending a lot of time with dad, then. Shared passion for books, perhaps?

(In my VK's case, books were the one thing they did get along on. The old Graf was big on history, though it was only after his death that VK came back, discovered the hidden alchemy lab and kind of regretted not talking to his dad more often.)

Dad was more than slightly eccentric, as well as a decade older than VK's mum, who had him when she was about twenty-ish. I think he took refuge in the library because it meant The Wife couldn't find him or at least, she assumed he was doing important things. She was quite the ferocious battleaxe, running the household with a rod of iron.

(And Johannes just murmured that he crept into the library to hide after getting caught filching food in the kitchen and found dad who was supposably working. He was asleep in a big, comfy chair and looked quite at ease. VK thought his father was a genius ;))

:D

Alas, most of my VK's memories of his dad concentrate on failed sword lessons and frustrations. Johannes was absolutely hopeless with a sword. Still is.

Turns out VK's mother's brother took charge of the martial arts for my VK, so mum had some semblance of control there as well. Dad was very much a scholar/linguist/intellectual, which drove his mother up the wall. She expected a man so well-travelled to be exciting and dashing and all that.

Turns out, he'd travelled to map out interesting lands and make interesting contacts. He looked fine and buff when she met him, if slightly more aloof and distant than he otherwise would be, because he had the left-over remnant of sunstroke ;) Still, he was all dark-haired, pale-eyed (something Scandanavian managed to slip into his blood line some time back) and intrigingly tanned and she decided she should have a nice, handsome soon-to-be-Graf, if the rumours were to be believed.

That sounds so much like Iza and my VK :D Iza was the youngest daughter, spoiled by her family but considered too thin and sharp-faced to snag anyone important. She made vague overtures at VK senior, who had charm in spades in social settings, but alas he kicked the bucket before she could get him in a compromising position and make him marry her. Then VK appears, handsome and well-travelled, with stories of Paris and Madrid and Venice and Rome and Vienna, all those places she always wanted to see, and of course as the Graf he won't sit around in that windy castle, but go back to the great world he's used to. And on top of that, he's a closet romantic, so it was the work of a week for Iza to make him fall head over heels with her.

It wasn't until after the wedding that she realised VK was supremely happy to be back home where he could conduct his studies systematically, not to mention the fact that if he had an attack of visions, all he had to do was lock down his wing of the castle. I think the time she told him (pouting all the while) that she thought she was pregnant, he sent her into hysterics by innocently remarking that he always wanted a big family - five kids or so...

VK Senior actually did adore his wife, because she did all the stuff he couldn't be bothered with, but she was still a formidable force to be reckoned with. Johannes was their second child of five. Two died in infancy and the other two survivors were the girls, who were married off when they came of age, because what else are moderately-pretty and well-dowried young women for?

(Also, hee! Littlest sibling is drying the dishes and loudly singing Wenn Liebe :D)

*blinks* You know, my VK is being very close-mouthed on the subject of siblings. I think there may have been a disowned younger brother.

(With or without knowing what it's about? :P)

VK says he wasn't close to them, really. He was a boy and thus, he wasn't expected to spend much time with them. The younger one, he got along with reasonably well, when mother wasn't looking, then he was sent off to school (a fair gap between those two - she was the last kid) and by the time he came back, she was about to get married off.

(Oh, he knows. And he still maintains if he could meet any Tanz character, it would be Herbert. Oh yes, my brother is extremely heterosexual. Very much so)

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