Summons

[pinkroses]

Murphy wet his lips as he waited for Charon to answer. The silence seem to last an age after the eager replied before, and he worried for a moment that he’d gone too far, but eventually the answer came and Murphy added another name to the mental family tree he was building up. He wondered whether his father had seen him like that, just a kid in the way, not someone he’d ever wanted around. Weak, pathetic, but Murphy was stronger than his father and had done so much more with his life already. It sucked to be not cared about, but Murphy imagined it must be worse to be compared to your brothers always. They were stronger, better, more loved. Chosen, not an afterthought. But he knew there was a lot more to the story that he just hadn’t heard yet. Maybe one day he would.

“And… Valerius, why did his fledgling kill him? If you don’t mind me asking? If I’m prying too much, just say, please,” Murphy said, not wanting to upset Charon by bringing up long past pains, but at the same time wanting to know it all.

[Trillian]

"He was a doppelganger," Charon said, refusing to speak Marcelo's name.  "He looked exactly like Valerius.  You could see the appeal, to bring back a copy of Tiberius after he was gone.  It was a poor substitute of course, and his personality was more like his sire; passionate, temperamental, unstable.  Valerius..."

He'd allowed himself to be killed.  Ah, but the pain of such truth couldn't be said aloud.

"Valerius met his end two years after he sired the lookalike, and he met his end two minutes after that."  Charon raised a hand.  "Enough, now.  Come back to me later, and after I have drunk from you again I will share more," he promised.

[pinkroses]

Murphy’s shoulders sank slightly as an end was put to the story time, but the half hour was up and he had been allowed to learn far more than he’d ever thought he would.

“Thank you for giving me so much of your time,” Murphy said gratefully, completely forgetting that at first he had been summoned here to discuss his friendship with Ben. The information he’d learnt was swimming around in his mind and he already wanted more, but held his tongue when another question threatened to bubble up.

Rather than asking, Murphy busied himself taking back his hand and pushing himself to his feet from the comfortable sofa. His hazel eyes swept around the room which was still mostly unclear in the dim light. It was obviously large and lavish though, but when you’d had so long to work out your fortune and your family, that was to be expected.

“I hop your family won’t mind you sharing so much about them with me?” he asked. Charon may be head of this family, but Murphy knew some very headstrong vampires, a lot of whom were very secretive and would take great offence to being discussed so much. He took half a step towards the exit as he waited for Charon‘s response, not sure if he should wait to be properly dismissed, or led to the front door before leaving. He had no clue how he would get home - maybe as he had been picked up he would be dropped off, but he didn’t want to assume.