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May Character Development Exercise
What's the one thing that your muse has done that they regret the most? What happened? How do they live with the consequences and have they ever made amends for their actions? Has this event impacted their lives/the lives of anyone else or how they deal with similar situations? Write a story around these questions.
Vampires Are Nothing, Happiness Kills – May CDE
Loneliness. That crushing emptiness wasn’t a feeling I was used to. I’d made a living as a killer, after all, for centuries, and such a profession didn’t lend itself to relationships. Lately, though, I’d been feeling the emptiness more and more. I was tired of the non-stop violence, of the hunger always raging in me like a trapped beast, even of sating that hunger in violence as I usually did.
On one wall of my apartment, chains hung, empty for now. Knives gleamed in their case. The hearth was cold and strewn with ashes from the last fire I’d lit there. The doors leading to the balcony were open, and a cold breeze blew in from the city, scattering the ash. Ash in a cold wind. God, don’t need Freud for this one.
I looked down at my hands. Empty. When had I thrown the wine bottle I’d been drinking from against the wall? There it was, shattered under the chains, with the blood it had held all over the wall and the carpet. I groaned and lay back on the couch. I was still hungry.
Empty. It was empty in here. Cold as the damned wind and rain that blew in from the balcony. Yeah, and whose fault is that? Not Adrien, no, he’s a model of civilized behavior. Like when I drove Roman off? Yeah, real fucking civilized.
We had been lovers for over three hundred years. It shocked people, sometimes, when we were seen together, laughing, kissing. With my reputation, I suppose they didn't expect I'd find happiness in the arms of another man, or at all, really. But we had been lovers. He had been truly in love. For myself, I was still too obsessed with the hunt to see how much Roman meant to me, until he was gone. But love him I did. It was a feeling I wasn't used to...still to this day hadn't gotten over. Didn't think I ever would, really.
How do I express how much he meant to me? I'm not a romantic. That was his territory. He was the one that loved to do all the things that mortal couples found romantic. Candlelight dinners, walks in the moonlight. The night that stands out most in my mind is one that would probably seem mundane to anyone who knows me. We took a carriage out to a secluded mountain cave, overlooking a glacier. We watched the moonlight on the snow, until he had me too distracted to care. Later we watched the sun rise, safe in the cool darkness in each other's arms.
Perhaps it was that love that made my later betrayal so much more glaring. I remembered that night as if it were yesterday. The Garou child had stumbled into our home during the day, while Roman was in the wilderness, recovering from the full moon. She was there to find Roman. Instead she found me, burned from the sunlight she'd innocently let into our home, maddened by hunger as I usually am when I first wake. I had her before she could even cry out. I don't even remember the rest of that day. My first clear memory is of two nights later, when Roman came back to find me with the girl in the basement that I'd turned into my own private torture chamber.
I was mad. Of that fact I was certain, even to this day. It was the first time I'd lost my mind so completely to the lust for blood and pain that I didn't even recognize what I was doing. The girl cried faintly. Her pain echoed in my mind. It wasn't enough! Part of me repeated that, over and over, until Roman came in to find the girl a broken husk, barely alive. I didn't even know what he was talking about at first, when he came in outraged at my actions. My only clear thought was that we had to leave, though I couldn't have said why, at least until my head cleared and I remembered who it was I had tortured. I didn't wake up, truly, until he stormed from the house, the girl limp in his arms. I cried for him then, tried to call him back, with words and with my mind. It was as if he didn't hear me.
It wasn't until later that night, when I was on the road, pushing the motorcycle as hard as it would go, that I heard from Roman again. Via the mental link we shared, I knew so much more than he told me. I knew he was hurt, grievously hurt. The Garou were hunting him, blamed him for what had happened. Inside, hidden from him, I felt shame, but with it was a kind of rage. Rage that he would put himself in harm's way for those animals.
He blamed me, of course. I blamed me, though I'd never tell him. It was, I suppose, the one time he truly saw me, saw what time and the lust for blood and death had done to me. The death of innocence is an unforgivable offense. It is something I regret, to this day I regret it. I tried to sever our connection, the bond that kept us closer than brothers, I tried to sever it when I would have him in my arms instead. He lost his mind, that night. He became his wolf and nothing but that. And I knew it was my fault.
Words do not describe how much I miss Roman. I miss his laughter. I miss his gentle, romantic nature. He brought out the best in me, softened me, was the only one I'd let near enough to me to do that. I would give anything to have him back here, in my arms again.
Je t'amie, mon amour, je t'amie.
What's the one thing that your muse has done that they regret the most? What happened? How do they live with the consequences and have they ever made amends for their actions? Has this event impacted their lives/the lives of anyone else or how they deal with similar situations? Write a story around these questions.
Vampires Are Nothing, Happiness Kills – May CDE
Loneliness. That crushing emptiness wasn’t a feeling I was used to. I’d made a living as a killer, after all, for centuries, and such a profession didn’t lend itself to relationships. Lately, though, I’d been feeling the emptiness more and more. I was tired of the non-stop violence, of the hunger always raging in me like a trapped beast, even of sating that hunger in violence as I usually did.
On one wall of my apartment, chains hung, empty for now. Knives gleamed in their case. The hearth was cold and strewn with ashes from the last fire I’d lit there. The doors leading to the balcony were open, and a cold breeze blew in from the city, scattering the ash. Ash in a cold wind. God, don’t need Freud for this one.
I looked down at my hands. Empty. When had I thrown the wine bottle I’d been drinking from against the wall? There it was, shattered under the chains, with the blood it had held all over the wall and the carpet. I groaned and lay back on the couch. I was still hungry.
Empty. It was empty in here. Cold as the damned wind and rain that blew in from the balcony. Yeah, and whose fault is that? Not Adrien, no, he’s a model of civilized behavior. Like when I drove Roman off? Yeah, real fucking civilized.
We had been lovers for over three hundred years. It shocked people, sometimes, when we were seen together, laughing, kissing. With my reputation, I suppose they didn't expect I'd find happiness in the arms of another man, or at all, really. But we had been lovers. He had been truly in love. For myself, I was still too obsessed with the hunt to see how much Roman meant to me, until he was gone. But love him I did. It was a feeling I wasn't used to...still to this day hadn't gotten over. Didn't think I ever would, really.
How do I express how much he meant to me? I'm not a romantic. That was his territory. He was the one that loved to do all the things that mortal couples found romantic. Candlelight dinners, walks in the moonlight. The night that stands out most in my mind is one that would probably seem mundane to anyone who knows me. We took a carriage out to a secluded mountain cave, overlooking a glacier. We watched the moonlight on the snow, until he had me too distracted to care. Later we watched the sun rise, safe in the cool darkness in each other's arms.
Perhaps it was that love that made my later betrayal so much more glaring. I remembered that night as if it were yesterday. The Garou child had stumbled into our home during the day, while Roman was in the wilderness, recovering from the full moon. She was there to find Roman. Instead she found me, burned from the sunlight she'd innocently let into our home, maddened by hunger as I usually am when I first wake. I had her before she could even cry out. I don't even remember the rest of that day. My first clear memory is of two nights later, when Roman came back to find me with the girl in the basement that I'd turned into my own private torture chamber.
I was mad. Of that fact I was certain, even to this day. It was the first time I'd lost my mind so completely to the lust for blood and pain that I didn't even recognize what I was doing. The girl cried faintly. Her pain echoed in my mind. It wasn't enough! Part of me repeated that, over and over, until Roman came in to find the girl a broken husk, barely alive. I didn't even know what he was talking about at first, when he came in outraged at my actions. My only clear thought was that we had to leave, though I couldn't have said why, at least until my head cleared and I remembered who it was I had tortured. I didn't wake up, truly, until he stormed from the house, the girl limp in his arms. I cried for him then, tried to call him back, with words and with my mind. It was as if he didn't hear me.
It wasn't until later that night, when I was on the road, pushing the motorcycle as hard as it would go, that I heard from Roman again. Via the mental link we shared, I knew so much more than he told me. I knew he was hurt, grievously hurt. The Garou were hunting him, blamed him for what had happened. Inside, hidden from him, I felt shame, but with it was a kind of rage. Rage that he would put himself in harm's way for those animals.
He blamed me, of course. I blamed me, though I'd never tell him. It was, I suppose, the one time he truly saw me, saw what time and the lust for blood and death had done to me. The death of innocence is an unforgivable offense. It is something I regret, to this day I regret it. I tried to sever our connection, the bond that kept us closer than brothers, I tried to sever it when I would have him in my arms instead. He lost his mind, that night. He became his wolf and nothing but that. And I knew it was my fault.
Words do not describe how much I miss Roman. I miss his laughter. I miss his gentle, romantic nature. He brought out the best in me, softened me, was the only one I'd let near enough to me to do that. I would give anything to have him back here, in my arms again.
Je t'amie, mon amour, je t'amie.