ᵖˡᵃᶜᵉ ʲᵉ ᵖᵃᶳᶳᵉ˒ ʲᵉ ᶳᵘᶤᶳ ʳᵒᶤ ᵈᵉᶳ ᵐᵉᶳ ʳᵉ̂ᵛᵉᶳ

"You know, the oddest thing happened, this evening," Mozart found himself desperate to declare, as he pushed open the château's door. There were too many thing wrong with it, though. For starters, if he had learned anything at all, it was that silence would swallow up any announcement and he would have to be content with talking to himself. Moreover, how odd was the occurance? Noteworthy enough, at least, that he felt it worth mentioning. On a grander scale? Maybe not so. Maybe vampires were predisposed to noticing visual motifs, patterns, reoccurring faces in crowds.

That, he had not learned. He knew basics, but only as theory; practical application only extended to food and silver. Well over a month in and his understanding of vampire lore still depended completely on questionable stories and the account of another.

To whom could he write a letter, to profess the absurdity of being more knowledgeable on the subject of his maker than on the rest of his existence?

Case in point, he couldn't say what would actually happen if he managed to fight the pull of sleep long enough to properly face the sun, but he knew with no uncertainty that there was no point announcing anything upon returning home because Salieri would not answer.

The other man had become even more of a ghost in the nights that followed Mozart's last attempt to win his favour. (No, that was dishonest. To seduce him. Again. Which had failed, and that was unfair.) Salieri did not want the things he wanted. Another lesson learned! Offering him everything he asked for resulted in the same solo sleep arrangements Mozart sought to rectify and, worse, now brought him equally as empty nights.

In the foyer, he thought about the odd thing, the girl with the plaited pale-fire hair, lurking somewhere in every crowd he passed through. The word, the concept his brain kept trying to apply to her was "Wicht", but what were the real chances that she was anything more than human? Hers wouldn't be the first pretty face to follow him. Where was her omnipresence now? Ah, if only he had caught her eyes even once. Maybe he would not have come home alone.

Bitterly, he thought her still worth mentioning to Salieri. That was a game he and Stanzi played, when one was displeased enough to not speak to the other. Even a shriek of jealousy might be better than silence. But Salieri was well-practiced with indifference and full of assumptions. No matter how Mozart conducted himself, this evening, his sire would be filled with convictions and accusations of debauchery, murder, indecency.

Mozart put his hand back on the door handle and, for an audience of no one, made a performance out of tapping his lips in thought. Here was the real curse: the acute, eternal loneliness Salieri wanted to damn him to. (Wanted to? Or, perhaps, didn't care if he suffered. Salieri claimed both malintent and genuine disinterest. The latter was an intolerable thought.) But! A simple cure waited for him. He could go back out. He could dissect eternity into one night and find the company - any company! Brooding, fiery, or something altogether different! - he missed. He could -

Answer the door. His hearing, his focus was no longer as scattered as it had been fresh out of the grave, so how had he missed the approaching footsteps? The knock, even with all its hesitance, took him by surprise.

What was the rule, here? Did vampires have to give their own permission to others. If only there was someone who could answer his questions.