"In... In what way?" She asked tentatively. Cypress sat down warily in the cushions of the sofa closest her; allowing the fullness of the scene to sink in. Her voice was a little higher and hallow, as though she were literally thinking loud enough for the world to hear, and still in that Francophonic mess. "Accidently in throws of passion? For a deciept?"

She passed a look over him that suggested that he didn't have to tell her anything, however she could not speak. There were no more words that could come to comfort or advise him. The vampiress was entirely uncertain of what to feel; unconcious of grief, curiosity, misery, or anything other than a void to be filled with answers.

"Indirectly, but the moment I say that it seems to devalue the entire thing." His unease with her melted when he focused on the wall and he was able to speak. "I am sure that you will think I am a fool, overreacting to the death of a human toy of all things. But I am responsible and destruction," he paused unable to deny it's existence in his nature, "is not what I want to cause."

Mark spread the palm of his hand against the wall. "It is not what I desire."

"Many things in this lifetime of ours.." she began softly, leaning her arm on the back of the sofa. "have come without our desire. Manythings, we cannot control. However, it makes them hurt no less." She breathed deeply. "You are not the first... to find yourself standing over the remains of one you once cared for..." Cypress reminded him, assured that he already knew this.

There was a long pause before she spoke again. "I- I killed one of the only people I've ever truly loved..." Her voice was lilting, but she attempted to continue. There were no tears in her eyes, or sobs in her throat, but it was clear to anyone who could train their ear to listen that she was in great pain. "A woman, barely a woman, that I came accross in my native country... She and I met on the street at night... with the usual female conversation. She was a-how you say- a prostitute? But this was in 183- something, I hate dating things... but it was bad then, and she was lost from her home. I took her, and loved her, and she was so confused. But I know she love me too. She told me so many times... in the most sympatique ways... and when she said she could no longer live with me, for the fact that I could not come out during the day... I lost my mind." Again, she had to pause.

"I ketp her in the house... and I am ashamed that I could not accept her rejection. But I coud not, and so I locked her away... It became to the point where I know she wanted death, and although no one on the outside missed her, if she did not return to the world of the living, it would mean her finish. And so, I let her go in the only way I knew how, to keep her and set her free at once.."

Cypress curled her legs unger and folded her arms around them, resting her head on the sofa with a dreadful, and relieved expression; something like a forced sense of peace came over her pallad face, and she breathed in deep, filling her dead lungs with lilac air.

The end of Cypress story seemed to beget release. She must have held onto that story for a long time. Mark slid his palm along the wall. Their existence was ugly. But Cypress was right, it wasn't really in their control. Their natures were still, deep with anxious need. As vampires, existence itself relied on the death and destruction of other creatures. It seemed emotions ran that way as well. The need to belong with something or to have something that belonged to one was paramount and desperate. It was why vampires created covens and kept human pets. Mark had shunned that need for a long time. The company of other vampires was usually vapid, insipid, and hideous. Instead he had tried to fill that void by building an economic empire. He refused to deign to attempt to find a mate. After his first experience, he could not envision it working. And he would not choose a vampire's life for another, therefore he did not cultivate a bride.

It seemed Cypress understood. Her story of dependence reminded him of is own dependent horrors. Independence was by far to be preferred.

"Did you ever express your fear and inacceptance in your art" He turned and looked at her, breathing on the couch, as though she'd swum for miles. Her lungs lifted her rib cage and pressed her chest towards the ceiling and back. A small smile twitched Mark's lips. She was like a mermaid, hauled from the sea.

"After that period of... of ennui," there was no other word for her emptiness and misery. " I chose to live with art and only art. It was, like an escape. And so my fear and anger never penatrated it. It is- I think- the last pure part of me that I have." She allowed her toes to touch the ground, but braced her ankles on the bottom of the couch. All this was so difficult to contemplate; for all those years that she'd kept it to herself. And now that she thought someone might understand and guard her secret, might be accomidating to her fragile state of mind, she was eager to get it out into the air.

"My art is not the best of my thoughts, not usually." She explained. "It is... my mind in flesh? If you can understand? It is not what I think, but what it looks like when... or rather as I think." It was a complex thought, even for her. But it usually wasn't until after she had done a piece that she understood how it fit into her brain. "Sometimes they are dark, but usually they are just... strange."

"After that period of... of ennui," there was no other word for her emptiness and misery. " I chose to live with art and only art. It was, like an escape. And so my fear and anger never penatrated it. It is- I think- the last pure part of me that I have." She allowed her toes to touch the ground, but braced her ankles on the bottom of the couch. All this was so difficult to contemplate; for all those years that she'd kept it to herself. And now that she thought someone might understand and guard her secret, might be accomidating to her fragile state of mind, she was eager to get it out into the air.

"My art is not the best of my thoughts, not usually." She explained. "It is... my mind in flesh? If you can understand? It is not what I think, but what it looks like when... or rather as I think." It was a complex thought, even for her. But it usually wasn't until after she had done a piece that she understood how it fit into her brain. "Sometimes they are dark, but usually they are just... strange."

"I see," He understood immediately. Many writers said that they did not know what they thought until they wrote it. "We do not know who we are until we create and express ourselves." Mark slid his palms along the top of the sofa and leaned his tall frame forward. "Preoccupation with an idea sometimes infiltrates art in a way that it does not infiltrate life, that allows us to both live out the breathing and living part of us while the dead finds expression in art so that while it seems that we live a double life, we are actually giving life to a complete self in compartmentalized states."

The lilacs brought out his philosophical side, he decided. His artistic side must come into play in destruction he thought. He could not paint a lick, nor write more than a memo. Perhaps his art was in building companies and empires.

The breathing became less labored and more of a single sigh that drifted off into the atmosphere. So he understood what she meant then... maybe her english was better than she thought, or maybe it was hardly what she said, and more what he knew. Either way, she seemed to relax and find a kind of comfort in their being in the same room together. His scent mingled with her lilacs, and it was good. Perhaps he wasn't an artist, and perhaps he didn't write anything more than hastey notes to secretaries, but he was immortal; and thus, understood her blight like no one save another eternal soul could.