Something New Every Day [Anadare]

[Lucienne Lumière]

“There’s got to be something wrong with him, there really has. I just can’t see what. I mean, he fidgets an annoying amount, but that’s it. He does his job and he does it well. But there’s got to be ...”

Lucie switched off from the conversation at this point. There wasn’t really that much she could do to contribute to it, so Dove wouldn’t notice. Especially when she was in full rant mood as she was now. All she needed to do was nod and make the right noises in the right places and she’d be able to concentrate on the stuff in front of her.

Not that it needed much concentration, that is ...

She had just bought herself a Kawasaki, had dismantled it and was now trying to put it back together again. Though, perhaps trying wasn’t the right word. Trying suggested that it look a fair amount of effort for her to do it. It really didn’t. Her ability meant that she instinctively knew what to do and she didn’t even have to think about it. The only reason she was even putting it back together was because she wanted to ride the damn thing.

“Luce, are you even listening to me?”

“Erm ... no, not exactly. Sorry.”

“I asked if you’d mind doing your thing with the new slave. You know, analysing him. Seeing what’s actually going on with him. It’s really starting to get on my nerves.”

Lucie looked up from her bike parts and raised an eyebrow at her friend. She grinned and wiped the grease from her hands onto her bare legs. “Are you admitting that a slave has got you stumped?”

Dove frowned at her and shook her head. “When will you start to take more care in your appearance at Court? Hot pants and a corset are not really suitable attire. And no, I’m not admitting that. I was just asking for your help, but if you’d rather sit and play with your bike than learn something new ...” She trailed off, grinning as she delivered what she knew was the winning line.

Lucie sighed in defeat and stood up. “Okay, you win. Where is he?”

“He’s cleaning your instruments in the Music Room.”

“You’ve got no heart, you know that, don’t you?” The Music Room was huge and filled to the brim with all the instruments that Lucie had mastered and gotten bored of in the past few years. There were hundreds of the things and they were all dust traps.

She walked out of the courtyard and towards where she expected to find the slave hard at work, stopping briefly to wipe the grease of her legs but missing that on her face. She had to admit, she was curious. This slave had gotten under Dove’s skin in only a few hours, normally it took people a few days for her to get this riled up about someone.

As she came up to the door, she eased it open, smiling when it didn’t squeak. She had always hated that bloody squeak and it made spying on the people so much easier now it had gone.

[Anadare MacAray]

Well this was a really, really, stupidly large and messy room.

Heck when was this place cleaned last? Seriously.

Well looking at it it was pretty obvious a lot of the room was barely, if ever used. Some of the instruments on one side of the room where vaguely dust free. Showing that at least some one had entered the room in the last decade or so. Never the less the room was a mammoth task. But then, he wasn't expecting any less. His lovely new bitch of a Mistress thought this would be a good punishment for him.

Heck it really proved that Anderson had told her nothing of him. Actually it was kind of fun, she actually thought it would take him a long time to clean this room. It would barely take him half and hour, heck if that! Yeah the room was huge and everything but she obviously hadn't quite worked out how his sonic speed worked yet... or the fact he had been a slave since he was 8. He'd learnt to clean fast and efficiently, heck this room would be cleaner than it was when it was first built by the time he was done with it. Not that he enjoyed doing this in the slightest of course. He hated it, he hated everything about this and his life and every thing that came with it.

The crux of the mater was that it was his life. He'd learnt how to live and how to tolerate it. This place though had thrown everything out of whack. He didn't get Dove yet... Yes Albert could slice him into a billion pieces but he was used to the pain, the pain of being bitten, the pain of being torn into. They where normal, they had already been there since he was 8 years old and first made some slight against Anderson he had never known. Pain was nothing new. To be honest though, she was. She was unknown idea, he didn't understand her or how she worked. He could heal from what she did to him true enough. He'd already healed from her last little use of that horrid ability she had. Being crushed is really not fun.

Dove however... was just plain new. There was nothing particular about her that scared him. Not that Dare would ever admit to being scared of a stupid vampyre. Here however, he was. Everything was just unknown, he'd know Anderson's house since he was 8 years old. It was the standard, half the time now-a-days it was as if Dare could see the future due to the fact the same things happened over and over again. His routine was like clockwork and there was very rarely any differentiation from his routine and when there was? He knew weeks in advance. He knew the staff.. he knew the building. He knew the servants from the slaves. Well that was a pretty easy distinction to make any way.

Vampyres where servants and Dhampyres where slaves. That was standard anywhere you went! The where a lesser breed so they would be the slaves. The servants didn't get it much better, they didn't get paid and where indentured for life similar to he, but they got clothes and possessions and stuff that Dare wouldn't get in a million years.

Dare shook his head when he realised he had been stood for nearly 10 minutes just thinking about his new owners. He kicked his stupid new shoes of and dropped them in a bin in the corner. No way in hell was he wearing those evil things for a second longer. The Jacket and thin shirt followed it barely a second and he was back down to his blue jeans again.

He craned his back and stretched and grinned to himself. That was... a lot better. Dare could now actually do something... cleaning and so on. He set of at a blinding speed on the room and had practically hard of it dust free before he stopped for a breath and set of again. Barely half an hour later the entire room was practically glowing, and he had like 2 hours before any one bothered to come and check up on him again, seeing as Dove said she would be back in. Which meant the best thing... ever.

Air Guitar!

He was alternating in speed from normal to Sonic as he covered the room to a song in his head. It was actually a real song of course. There had been the odd occasion when Anderson had left him in the room with a radio. Usually when he had heard a song once he'd keep it in his head. So he could repeat it for air guitar-ing sessions later on. Today was a good option – Dare! It was a great song and was fantastic and was his name. So HA. And heck this room was all nice and sound proof so he could sing and Whatnot. Fantastic.

Dare broke out into his usually moves of going around the room, He had a good amount of space and Dare actually had a very good singing voice. Not that anyone else really knew that of course. No one else had ever really heard him, a few of the slaves had but then you can't really take what they say... They don't have much of a comparison when it comes down to it. Not surprising really what with them being slaves and all.

Not that that mattered of course. Dare wasn't exactly self conscious, about anything. He'd never really had the need to. Most people would not dance around a room and air guitar as randomly as he was right now, heck at certain point he was using his leg as a guitar. Embarrassment wasn't exactly something that featured in Dare's life. When you get sliced to pieces for an example in front of tons of people fore entertainment? Yeah dancing around is just standardised....

Dare - dare to believe you can survive
You hold the future in your hand
Dare - dare to keep all of your dreams alive
It's time to take a stand
And you can win, if you dare

That was when he heard it. The door clicked shut.

Blonde, Vampyre. Clothes? Not servant. Shite.

Wait was that a corset? And grease... Ok... Yeah but still not servant... still... shite...

Bad, Bad …. Bad.... The cow has said 4 hours! It had barely been sodding 40 minutes. He span to face her but didn't meet her in the eyes, still unsure about how this place worked... he really needed more information or he was going to end up in a worse hell at this rate. So Dare pretty much did the only thing he could do to try and get out of this situation. He dropped to his knees and did the whole Slave thing and prayed that she hadn't been there long.

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[Lucienne Lumière]

Lucie eased the door open and silently slipped into the room. She hadn’t set foot in here for months and even then, she didn’t do much more than add to the mess with a harp that stood dormant in the corner. She felt a guilty twinge in her stomach about that; Nathaniel had heard that they were notoriously difficult to master and had hoped to give her something to do for a day or so. After strumming her fingers along the strings, however, she was able to play it better than the harpist in the Orchestra.

Her eyes were immediately drawn to the slave in the middle of the room. He was dancing. No, not dancing, playing an air guitar. Using his leg as a guitar. She would feel annoyed that he was using his leg as a guitar when there were perfectly serviceable guitars laying around, but she couldn’t be annoyed when faced with a grown man acting like a child. She stifled a giggle and struggled not to slip over to her guitars to add some music to his play.

She shook her head, reminding herself why she was there. She was meant to be working out what was wrong with this slave, not playing games with him. Though, just by looking at what he was doing now, she had a good idea. Not that it was that much of a surprise; she rarely had to look at someone for more than a few minutes to understand how they worked. After all, it was just like looking at a complicated computer.

She closed the door and immediately cringed as a loud CLICK broke through the silence. Dammit, I was doing so well!

[/color] She’d completely forgotten just how loud this door was, which was a first. She could blame it on having not been here for months, but she knew that was a lie. She was just too preoccupied with the Dhampyre frozen in front of her.

She cringed further when he span around to face her and dropped to his knees. She always hated this part of Court, hated being made to feel superior to people just because of her heritage. It didn’t make sense; she was only here by fluke anyway. If it weren’t for Chantal having read her potential ability, she’d have died forty five years ago.

It really didn’t make any sense that she should be put above those that were actually related to members of the Court. She always felt awkward when they dropped to their knees like that. Running around to do what she wanted was fine, if they actually wanted to do it. But being forced into it and into this subservient role? She didn’t like it.

“Erm ... Hi. I didn’t ... I didn’t mean to interrupt. I wasn’t expecting to find someone here. I just came to check the piano. Apparently Elizabeth was playing it the other day and said it was out of tune or something. I wouldn’t put it past her to sabotage it ... ”[/color] The lies came easily to her, just as everything else did. She wasn’t sure why she lied, but she just went with what came naturally to her. Besides, telling him that his new Mistress was already checking up on him and couldn’t even be bothered to do it herself wasn’t exactly something she wanted to do.

She stood awkwardly in silence for a few seconds, then sighed and muttered in her native tongue before putting her hand on her hip and addressing the slave again. “Can you please stand up? I don’t like this whole ‘I am your slave and I’ll do whatever you want me to’ shit.”[/color] She waved vaguely at him with her other hand, taking in his whole demeanour. “That kind of thing shouldn’t be done outside of the bedroom and only on occasion.”[/color] Though she had to admit, he did look divine knelt like that. Especially bare-chested like he was.

She shook her head to stop herself eyeing him up. The poor guy probably had that enough from all the other females, and possibly males. She'd not even been in the room for five minutes and she was doing the same. Not that anyone could blame her, but she guessed that he wouldn't be too happy with the attention. “I'm Lucienne, by the way. Lucienne Lumière. I know, it sounds like something out of a crappy super hero magazine, but that can't be helped.” [/blockquote][/size]

[Anadare MacAray]

Dare didn't even consider the idea of raising his head. The woman in front of him was an entirely new entity… Dove at least had some resemblance to what he had dealt with at some time in the past but corset, hot pats and grease? That was an entire new ball game and no one had bothered to give Dare a copy of the rule sheet. He couldn't even see much from his current position which was a nightmare, he hated not knowing what some one was thinking or what they where doing in the room around him. It set his teeth on edge every time. That was the point of it though, keeping him uneasy and fearful was how they broke slaves.

“Erm ... Hi. I didn’t ... I didn’t mean to interrupt. I wasn’t expecting to find someone here. I just came to check the piano. Apparently Elizabeth was playing it the other day and said it was out of tune or something. I wouldn’t put it past her to sabotage it ... ” Dare tilted his head minutely, actually biting his bottom lip to stop himself from speaking. It was actually very hard, people rarely if ever spoke directly to him (At him yes... to him? Nope.) and he was still in his usual mind set. This would be the perfect time for a sarcastic comment or something but he couldn't. Unknown people where dangerous and even though she seemed to have an innocent reason for being here Dare was smarter than that. he was a new slave, Dove was not happy with him. She was here to check up on him - this was just a game. So instead he kept quiet and felt his own blood pool slightly in his mouth from the strain of staying put.

“Can you please stand up? I don’t like this whole ‘I am your slave and I’ll do whatever you want me to’ shit.”

Dare couldn't help the flinch as he just saw a bit of movement, it was very similar to Anderson's when he was using his ability and he was on edge. Normally he wouldn't even flinch when an ability WAS used on him... this place just had him off centre. Her words however caught him entirely by surprise. What she wanted him to stand? Ok, yeah this was a game. They actually knew more about him than he thought and they where going to try and break him down. That was the only answer for it. No one spoke like that to slaves... the only time he had ever been told to stand was to do some work or something. Never the less though, he would take was she said as an order as she told him to do it, staying on his knees would just be worse, plus it was uncomfortable. He stood up, quite slowly and kept his eyes trained on the wall behind her, still avoiding eye contact. Punishment for that one was never worth the crime in the Anderson's house.

“That kind of thing shouldn’t be done outside of the bedroom and only on occasion.”

Dare merely tilted his head at that, a little baffled by her comment but chose to keep his attention else where until she gave him an order or something. God he hated vampyres. Lording it about and bossing him around. It was at times like these when he craved freedom more than ever. Wished he could tell them where to go and go some where else. Although if her were to be honest? Heck even that thought scared him - change wasn't good and Dare didn't know anything other than what he had lived. He noted that she was looking at him but that was nothing new, he had no idea why but it had been the same in the other house too, he got singled out a lot. He assumed it was his loud mouth...

“I'm Lucienne, by the way. Lucienne Lumière. I know, it sounds like something out of a crappy super hero magazine, but that can't be helped.”

Dare pretty much acted on instinct, he didn't think - which is bad. You always need to think when speaking to your owners, it was one of his rules and he broke it the second she said something that triggered a memory in his head. He was obsessed with Marvel... and she had just given him an opening. Even Anderson hadn't known that he had managed to amass a good amount of magazines over the years...

"Marvel guys.. Pepper Potts.. Peter Parker.. Bruce Banner. It's cause the writer had a bad memory...."

He stopped short and if possible, he actually paled. Bah, how the hell had this woman managed to trick him so easily! He was doing well so far, at least he thought he had been doing well. Something about how she spoke to him just threw him and he had forgot she was his owner for a moment. Shite..." Dare wished she would just give him an order so he could do something! That was when he realised that she had actually introduced her self? What the hell did that mean? Did she want his name? No one else cared about his name before... If this was a tact to throw him of his game it was working... it was just too different to the other house... He was mostly just called Slave or It... It had been popular since he had gotten here.

"I'm Dare... I mean Anadare MacAray Miss." His voice didn't come out cracked and broken like most slaves, heck he probably sounded stronger than some Vamps when he spoke. He just had one of those voices you couldn't help but listen too even though Dare had no clue about it, but he knew a lot of vampyres didn't like his voice so he usually kept words to a minimum.

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[Lucienne Lumière]

Lucie watched as the slave flinched as she moved, then stood slowly as if trying not to draw too much attention to himself. He even refused to look her in the eye, looking at the wall behind her instead. What had he gone through to be so evasive and ... flinchy. She felt her borrowed blood begin to boil in her veins. If Dove had had anything to do with this, she’d have words with her. She didn’t care if she was heir to the poxy throne, no one deserved to be treated badly just because of their Race.

When she introduced herself, she smiled as she saw a flash of his real personality beneath the subservient crap. "Marvel guys.. Pepper Potts.. Peter Parker.. Bruce Banner. It's cause the writer had a bad memory...”

Lucie couldn’t help but grin. People wouldn’t think it to look at her, but she was something of a comic book geek. Hell, she was a geek in anything really. It didn’t take an awful lot to grab her attention, especially if it meant that she had to learn something. With comics, it took her longer than normal to learn everything. She didn’t pick up a comic and instinctively know everything about it. She loved it.

Then just as she thought she was making some headway with the slave, he seemed to back track.

She watched as he paled as if he had done something wrong. Okay, this was really starting to get on her nerves now. He seemed to think that he wasn’t allowed to do anything and that she was going to make sure he knew it. What exactly could she do, anyway? She could sneak up on him and ... tell him how to build a F1 car or make a dress. Okay, that did sound pretty horrific, but the most damage it would do was bore the poor man to death.

"I'm Dare... I mean Anadare MacAray Miss." When he spoke, he sounded more confident, but it sounded like he was rattling off his name, rank and security number or whatever it was. And what on Earth was with the Miss?! Seriously, it made her feel like a bloody school teacher.

“Please don't call me Miss, it's just strange ... It's Lucie or Luce, what ever suits you best.”

[/color]

She didn't wait for him to respond, guessing that he wouldn't respond with much. Instead, she shook her head and went to sit on the piano stool. She was kinda pleased that Dove had sent him in here, at least she had a valid excuse for being here. She did a few scales in quick succession and frowned at all the duff notes. What the hell had that harpy woman done to her piano?! She stood up and opened the top of the piano before turning back to where Dare was still stood. “Erm, do you mind doing something? You standing there is kinda creeping me out.”[/color]

She turned back to the piano and searched for the thing that holds the top up. She frowned when she couldn’t find it and turned once more to Dare. “Do you think you could hold this up? The stand thingys hiding and I don’t want it to fall on top of me and possibly crush me ... That wouldn’t be fun. And I really need to see what that evil harpy has done to my piano.”[/color]
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[Anadare MacAray]

“Please don't call me Miss, it's just strange ... It's Lucie or Luce, what ever suits you best.” Dare tilted his head in confusion,OK, he wasn't going crazy right. She was actually speaking too him like he was a real person rather than at him like an object. Something that she was very used to, being talked to – that was a whole new game. Yeah slaves talked to each other in Anderson's house but it was rare and barely beyond the standard politeness. It was too dangerous to form attachments or friendships in that kind situation because it was likely that they would end up dead tomorrow and if not tomorrow the next day. Also likely you'd end up getting in trouble for them.

She didn't give him a chance to respond this time however, which was good because Dare was baffled. He'd had virtually every trick in the book used on him for his masters to work out what he was up to and if he was a good little broken slave but he had to admit this woman was throwing him. Which was so rare Dare was pretty sure it had never happened before. No matter when the little brat vampyre had put him through not too long ago she had dropped him here out of sheer frustration with him. Although he was sure his back was still hurting a little, residual pain he assumed seeing as how all the damage she had done was long healed.

His back was aching a little though, she had probably cracked his spine or something equally as clever. There was still a residual taste of his own blood in his mouth as well. Most of which he had wiped on the shirt he had deposited in the bin on the other side of the room. He wasn't keeping the shirt might as well use it to get the blood of his face. He didn't particularly want to go walking around with a blood covered face after all.

“Erm, do you mind doing something? You standing there is kinda creeping me out.” He started slightly before nearly turning and glaring at her... he rarely got comfortable enough in a room with another person that he zoned out enough that they startled him. Dare glanced around trying to work out something he could do. He idly considered going over all of the instruments again but that had been tedious the first time around let alone having to do it again. “Do you think you could hold this up? The stand thingys hiding and I don’t want it to fall on top of me and possibly crush me ... That wouldn’t be fun. And I really need to see what that evil harpy has done to my piano.” He sighed thanking the gods that she had finally said something he could actually do that wouldn't confuse the crap out of him. Barely a second after she had finished her sentence she was by her side and holding up the Piano. Having used his sonic speed to be there in less than a second.

He glance around with something to focus on but it was tricky now, Dove had thrown him on the regard... quite literally as well as metaphorically so he wasn't sure about the whole eye contact thing. Dare was tired of playing it safe, and after maybe... an hour of behaving he couldn't be bothered again. Plus she had already caught him dancing and singing around the room and he knew the woman was going to report back... he just wanted to know exactly what she was going to him.

He sighed and glanced around, getting as close to actually look at her as he could muster. “Er... So what exactly are you going to tell her about... what I was doing in here? I know I'm being checked up on and all that crap I just want to know if she's planning on cracking my spine again/” He grimaced at what he had said, that was probably the worst put question... in the history of all time and she was probably going to skip on out side and bring the evil harpy woman back in to slam him against the wall a few more times. Even though he was still standing the idea of going through that again with an actual real slight against him? It made his stomach twist and face pale slightly at the idea.