[It's a difficult time for all of them, night, and on this one Beckett feels like his head is about to burst from everything in it. He lies back on the bed, Rhys snoring by his feet, and watches the message - volume very low - and feels, strangely, the chaos in his own thoughts ease along with Enoch's mind as he focuses on it. He doesn't realize as much at first, but the video, the ongoing talk draws him in, as he watches the reflection unfurls. Watching an understanding come about is the closest thing, the most comfortingly close thing, he gets to reaching some sense of understanding himself.
When Enoch reaches that word - love - a part of him naturally balks, but not with mockery. There are rare moments where he has been humbled - not intellectually, but in this much more human way. This feeling that he has been given something that it is not entirely within his worth to repay. That there is someone towards which he ought to strive. For a long time, that night, he sits suffused with that feeling, weighing it, like a warm weight about his shoulders.
When he finally goes to record a response, he makes a decision out of impulse, and runs with it.]
Hello, Enoch. I... [It's a little harder than he thought it would be, to begin, and in the recording his eyes shift a little, with almost boyish shyness - he's not wearing his tinted glasses, and his eyes show their natural hazel colour, though it's hard to tell by tablet-light. The focus is tight, and he speaks low, but finally clearly.] I thought for a while about how I can answer everything you've said. Your doubts and - your conviction. And I realized I never really told you about my friend whom you remind me so much of, Anatole. And I think I should.
[It would be easy to drift a little here, with the memories, but he remains very much present, focused.] Anatole was of Clan Malkavian. The Mad Clan. It runs in the blood, the madness. His was of a religious sort. He had visions, fits, obsessions... it was hard to know where the insanity ended and true faith and prophecy begun, but it was there. He saw you, saw you whole, into and through you, saw you as God did. His gift was to change people. And he... he more than changed me. He made me.
After my Embrace I ran wild, little more than a beast. For almost half a century I cared about nothing but my instincts, my pleasures. I joined a pack of bandits no different from what my mortal self might have done, if he had even that much volition, and we did everything you suppose we did and more. But I was - it's a long story, but we wound up as blood-bound slaves in the house of a Kindred scholar. Johann James Beckett. Anatole found me there. I'd been... been learning to read. I was bad at it, it came slow. My master presented some of the others to Anatole, ones who've been making better progress. It was an accident that they came across me at practice. He told Anatole - I remember just the words - "this one's hopeless, a true animal mind. He only keeps trying because he is too stubborn to understand."
Anatole looked at me once, and left. But he and Lucita came back a fortnight later and chased off him and all his household. For me. Anatole, he took my face, forced me to look at him, put his finger on my lips - do you know the Jewish folklore about the angel who puts his fingers on the lips of the newborn? - and he told me, wake up. And I did. I became... human. Still undead, still damned, but human.
[He gives a slight, shaky exhale.] I tell you this because I want you to understand what it means when I say that you remind me of him. He was my brother and my teacher, but more than that he was the one who made me... who gave meaning to my being, my life, my death. I care about many others I've met in this town, but you... you have somehow given meaning to my being here. My survival. The possibility of an existence after two dead worlds. And I... it's beyond me to find words to express my thanks for that. I can only say that you know what I do not give lightly. I can only say - you are my Kindred, whatever that means now. I want it to mean something of this sort.
[So at last, he also smiles, more weary than calm, but just as genuine. His head drops forward slightly, shoulders sagging towards the tablet, almost like he wishes he could lean his forehead against Enoch's - which a part of him does, seeking warmth and the touch of life. He goes on speaking low, even as his eyes close.] So there it is. I think that answers any questions regarding any resentment I might told against you, or doubts about our friendship. Or at least I think I've rambled on enough to send you to sleep. We do what we can. Sleep well, Enoch.
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branchandroot
night 265; video
Date: 2017-08-03 08:38 pm (UTC)When Enoch reaches that word - love - a part of him naturally balks, but not with mockery. There are rare moments where he has been humbled - not intellectually, but in this much more human way. This feeling that he has been given something that it is not entirely within his worth to repay. That there is someone towards which he ought to strive. For a long time, that night, he sits suffused with that feeling, weighing it, like a warm weight about his shoulders.
When he finally goes to record a response, he makes a decision out of impulse, and runs with it.]
Hello, Enoch. I... [It's a little harder than he thought it would be, to begin, and in the recording his eyes shift a little, with almost boyish shyness - he's not wearing his tinted glasses, and his eyes show their natural hazel colour, though it's hard to tell by tablet-light. The focus is tight, and he speaks low, but finally clearly.] I thought for a while about how I can answer everything you've said. Your doubts and - your conviction. And I realized I never really told you about my friend whom you remind me so much of, Anatole. And I think I should.
[It would be easy to drift a little here, with the memories, but he remains very much present, focused.] Anatole was of Clan Malkavian. The Mad Clan. It runs in the blood, the madness. His was of a religious sort. He had visions, fits, obsessions... it was hard to know where the insanity ended and true faith and prophecy begun, but it was there. He saw you, saw you whole, into and through you, saw you as God did. His gift was to change people. And he... he more than changed me. He made me.
After my Embrace I ran wild, little more than a beast. For almost half a century I cared about nothing but my instincts, my pleasures. I joined a pack of bandits no different from what my mortal self might have done, if he had even that much volition, and we did everything you suppose we did and more. But I was - it's a long story, but we wound up as blood-bound slaves in the house of a Kindred scholar. Johann James Beckett. Anatole found me there. I'd been... been learning to read. I was bad at it, it came slow. My master presented some of the others to Anatole, ones who've been making better progress. It was an accident that they came across me at practice. He told Anatole - I remember just the words - "this one's hopeless, a true animal mind. He only keeps trying because he is too stubborn to understand."
Anatole looked at me once, and left. But he and Lucita came back a fortnight later and chased off him and all his household. For me. Anatole, he took my face, forced me to look at him, put his finger on my lips - do you know the Jewish folklore about the angel who puts his fingers on the lips of the newborn? - and he told me, wake up. And I did. I became... human. Still undead, still damned, but human.
[He gives a slight, shaky exhale.] I tell you this because I want you to understand what it means when I say that you remind me of him. He was my brother and my teacher, but more than that he was the one who made me... who gave meaning to my being, my life, my death. I care about many others I've met in this town, but you... you have somehow given meaning to my being here. My survival. The possibility of an existence after two dead worlds. And I... it's beyond me to find words to express my thanks for that. I can only say that you know what I do not give lightly. I can only say - you are my Kindred, whatever that means now. I want it to mean something of this sort.
[So at last, he also smiles, more weary than calm, but just as genuine. His head drops forward slightly, shoulders sagging towards the tablet, almost like he wishes he could lean his forehead against Enoch's - which a part of him does, seeking warmth and the touch of life. He goes on speaking low, even as his eyes close.] So there it is. I think that answers any questions regarding any resentment I might told against you, or doubts about our friendship. Or at least I think I've rambled on enough to send you to sleep. We do what we can. Sleep well, Enoch.