Ephraim Solomon, from Delilah's Gourmet: Blood and Pastries, a roleplay on RPG

“Even small things are often best not forgotten.”

This human was rather peculiar, she thought. She has interacted with many of them, both before and after her changing, and perhaps it said more about her than him that she had not often encountered any who would demonstrate this level of concern over what happened to a stranger, especially considering how minor the injury really was. Still, it was not as though she could offer her guarantee that no mark would be left, for if she were indeed what she pretended to be, it may. So she canted her head slightly to the side, amused beneath her gentle expression to be on the receiving end of such ministration. She’d been a doctor, and now she was something else, a healer of a more supernatural kind, and as such, she’d always treated herself. Even in her distant childhood, she’d been the caretaker of her siblings, all eleven of them, so this was almost surreal in its strangeness.

It had at least given her a sense of how to be a good patient, and so she did not shift or stir uncomfortably as the handkerchief was applied to her burn, and accepted the compliment with grace. “My thanks—it is kind of you.” She allowed her meaning to remain ambiguous between the comment itself and the general nature of his present action, as in truth she referred to both. Lenore felt a vague sense of bewilderment, but took care not to let it cross her face. Occasionally, people still surprised her, even after this many years. It was not wholly unpleasant, but she would never grow to expect it, by any means.

Regardless, she was a woman who paid her debts, a trait engrained in her by some combination of disposition and following Ephraim Solomon around for more than a century, so she made note of this one. She would find a way to repay it—while it was true that it was only a small thing, that was not necessarily obvious, and did not count against a certain reciprocal obligation. Small things could be quite important, as well.

A feminine voice broke into the scene, so to speak, and she was reminded quite sharply that the world still moved at the same pace around them. How curious. Judging by the fact that this human responded without hesitation to the name, it would logically be his. Liam, then. She would not forget it until she could find some suitable form of recompense for this kindness. What would happen to it after that was not her concern—they were all too nomadic, and human lives too transient, to allow for any other attitude. She did not know the third person to whom they referred, and it was hard to smell anything else at all when Liam was in such close proximity, but now that she was actually paying attention, she realized that the situation at hand may not be so far beyond her as she’d initially supposed.

She managed a half-smile at his apology, and shook her head faintly. Her mind was half-elsewhere, but that did not stop her from replying. “Think nothing of it,” she replied mildly, inclining her head in response to the offer. It was at least a clue about how to go about paying this debt, and she lifted her uninjured hand in reply to the silent farewell. If she noted the fact that the other woman was apparently less-than-pleased with her presence, she gracefully ignored it. Was it a function of the brevity of human lifespans that they were so quick to jump to conclusions? If so, there was nothing she could do about it, and she refused to correct every misunderstanding or explain every action she took. People would think what they wished to think anyway.

She waited a few moments before striking off in another direction, sensing that perhaps Virgil would be better-equipped to smooth over what might be a very uncomfortable situation than Ephraim would—and she simply lacked the authority. Ari and Morgan had no particular incentive to listen to her, assuming she would even know what to do in the first place.

“There is more than one way to be immortalized.”

If he weren’t so absolutely sure of her relative innocence, he would have taken her for a tease at present. It would have naturally been interesting in its own way, but not quite as novel as the idea that she was speaking purely from naiveté. He could do so much worse than disappoint, and in truth, one day, he likely would. But that day was not today, and so he only smiled, his silence an easy invitation for her to continue speaking, and in this respect, she did not disappoint.

Certainly, he was a man who did not care much for others. Most of these humans could die before him at this very moment, and he would hardly bat an eyelash. Perhaps he would be miffed that such a gruesome event would rather dampen his present amusement—she would be much less arresting dissolved into hysterical tears or something of the like, after all—but it would not extend beyond the kind of care one had seeing a wild animal hit by a car. It would not necessarily be pleasant, but he could thereafter continue his day entirely unmoved. They concerned him that little. This did not mean, however, that he was uninterested in them. Some of them had fascinating stories to tell, some of them had dull ones, but they all had a certain merit as far as Virgil was concerned. He tended to collect information like other people collected precious gems, and even the ones that seemed initially to have no use for him were prized to a certain extent—and why not? Iron might forge a sword with which to kill, but a sapphire would serve for nothing but pretty baubles and ornaments.

Analogously, useful information was his weapon of choice, when he had a choice, but the useless little tidbits were the ones he liked the most. Perhaps, to someone of his nature, the story of her life, of any of these lives, was trivial, but that did not make it worthless, nor beneath his attention. Indeed, it was just that there was no need for him to know it that made it interesting to know. Ephemeral, short, and often brutish were the lives of humans, but in his mind, each story was truly immortal, for it would live as long as he did.

He inclined his head at the conclusion of this one, an acknowledgement (even if she did not understand it) that this story, too, now lived as he did, and then he paused, as though giving her question some consideration. “I do not know,” he conceded at last. There was a smell he knew in the area, and it lingered close by. Nikolai was near, but Virgil’s presence was stopping him from carrying out his intent here. He would simply have to go elsewhere for his ends. “Not all of the members of my family are well, you see. My brother believes that being in a peaceful location such as this will help, but we are also far from the resources of a larger city, and that is something of a risk.” It was so close to the truth it was actually funny, but what afflicted his dear family was no disease.

He almost chuckled at the expression on her face when she let him go to slide her shoes back on, but he was prevented from answering by the appearance of Lenore. He’d sensed her coming, but had not thought she would emerge to greet him. He supposed he did have to be responsible eventually, didn’t he? A shame, when he was having so much fun with the diverting human. “Lenore,” he greeted warmly, “Does our dear brother require our presence already?”

She’d picked up on the fact that a human was present, obviously, and so her words matched the act he was putting on, rather seamlessly in fact. “Not as such,” she said, flicking her glance to Calleigh for a moment. “But I think Morgan and Ari might need your help.” Nodding to the human, she turned on her heel, wisely leaving him to do the explaining.

With a put-upon sigh, Virgil turned to the human girl and put on his very best sheepish grin. “I am afraid I will have to delay my acceptance of such a delightful suggestion,” he said, reaching out quite deliberately to tuck a lock of light brown hair behind her ear. His fingers trailed through the length of the strand, and he let it fall only when he reached the end, something almost wistful on his features as it settled back against the front of her shoulder. “Perhaps I shall pay you a visit at your place of employment?” Though inflected as a question, there was a certain finality to it which sounded more like a promise than anything. Crossing an arm over his chest, he bowed extravagantly and rose again, smiling mischievously before disappearing into the crowd.

Quite intentionally, he’d refrained from taking his surcoat back.

“Is it truly necessary to remind you of the concept of discretion?”

To say that Ephraim was enraged by what he saw upon following Senka to the location of what appeared to have been a confrontation of some kind, only to find two of his coven at the center of it, would perhaps be a slight overstatement. He was not, as a rule, an emotional man, and did not tend to react with great fanfare to the things that went on around him. There was no mistaking, however, the heat of the glare he leveled first upon Morgan and then Arianrhod—they should both by now understand why it was that blending with humans was necessary, and clearly, they were doing a poor job of remaining beneath local suspicion this way. He didn’t know exactly what had happened, and he didn’t honestly care: the fact was, they’d made a spectacle of themselves with some human in the middle, and he was not going to allow the farce to continue.

“Morgan. Arianrhod. Go home. Now.” His tone did not deviate from the monotone he normally used, but it was so perfectly without inflection that it could only have been concealing something else. Unlike them, however, he knew how to keep himself in check. Regardless of whether a human held a certain appealing smell or was lower than the dirt beneath their feet, there were certain things they had to do, for the sake of their own survival. He doubted this would be enough to alert anyone to their location, but given that there was already another vampire sniffing around, it was best not to take chances.

He could smell Lenore and Virgil incoming as well, but they at least seemed to know how to blend. Arya was around, but the problems she presented were wholly different. It rankled him to apologize generally, and moreso on behalf of other people, but he would do it now, because it was what logic demanded. If only others could answer its imperatives with the same regularity. “I am sorry about my relatives,” he said, directing the statement to Senka and both of the males she seemed to know. “I do not know what provoked them to whatever actions they took here, but it will not repeat itself.” So saying, he inclined his head slightly before turning to leave himself. They would be heading back, if for no other reason than he would drag them bodily if they did not, a capacity he had but did not particularly want to exercise.

A week later, Ephraim cracked open the morning newspaper, currently seated at the impressive redwood dining table the house had been furnished with. There was a mug of coffee to his left, but aside from this and the occasional whim of Virgil’s, the kitchen was the most useless room in the entire house. Outside, the sun was just setting, which of course meant that his day had only begun.

The murder story had been moved back to page three, after spending most of the intervening time on the front. It was not often that violent deaths occurred in the area, and two in such close proximity was inherently suspicious, and, he supposed, frightening to humans. He didn’t like it either, but for different reasons. Unlike the last victim, this one had been a young woman, Peony Huang, sister to one of the members of the town’s small police force. She had also been staff at that peculiar establishment that Senka ran, one of those humans who smelled so unusual. That the two murders had taken place immediately after the new residents moved into the manor home on the outskirts of the area was so coincidental he hoped it would be seen for the obvious frame-up it was. But he’d long ago lost faith in the reasoning capabilities of humans—and most everyone else, honestly. He waited for the suspicion without hurrying it along.

Thankfully, most of the coven had stuck to the house for the previous week, save Virgil, who was always doing who-knew-what, but Ephraim had stopped bothering to track his brother’s exact movements years ago. Virgil did what he wanted, when he wanted, and as long as it didn’t amount to stupidity, his brother cared not what it was. Morgan and Ari had received a rather stern reminder that, while humans might be both lower beings (Ari) and tempting (Morgan) they were not to be harmed or consumed in public. Lenore had stayed his hand on anything further than reminding them, but that did not mean it had been a pleasant experience for any of the people involved. He preferred to let his family do what they wanted, but there were limits. There had to be.

Ephraim Solomon

0 · 388 views · located in River Lake | Fictional USA

a character in “Delilah's Gourmet: Blood and Pastries”, originally authored by Dynamite, as played by RolePlayGateway

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Ephraim Solomon's Story

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