Charles Victor Aesthetic
He looks at me with disappointed eyes.
I see it.
And he knows I see it.
He has never made it secret.
Why should he?
Instead, it has taken me far too long to figure out the meaning in his expression, especially given that it wars so closely with my father’s.
Unlike Victor, Craterus is by far the more patient man.
His love for me runs deeper.
Hotter.
Yet there it is.
His disappointment.
What can I say to that?
Men have never talked in this house as they should.
Perhaps I am alone in recognizing it?
At times, I know when I am wrong. I am not so foolish however, as to imagine I am always wrong.
Men such as Victor are not required to either explain or justify themselves. They are simply a force of nature, and to get in the way of their endeavors is to face the brunt of their ire.
And so, again, I may say I am not always wrong.
I am, on occasion, in the wrong place perhaps.
Dearest Craterus does not see it thusly, nor does he recognize the moment for what it is.
Before Nature, can any man defend his right?
I am not a Shakespearean character that I might bellow fruitlessly at the coming storm.
At least as a Vampire, I heal the faster.
There is blessing in that, before some unfortunate believes me the victim of an entirely different fist.
Craterus asked me yesterday – at last! – why I permit myself to be so abused.
Whereupon I did reply with some haste, “Why do you permit it?”
And with that, my father may well have struck the same blow upon him as my words did cause.
It was a considerable shock to us both, I dare say, and my chagrin granted me to stutter and stumble over my own tongue as though I had become naught but a babe again.
I would not hurt darling Craterus for the world, but only then did I pause long enough, stuck in that awful moment, to realize my physical discomforts at being so struck had indeed been felt by him each time too, from as long ago as our Bonding, if not before.
Why would he not tell me this?
Did he think I already knew?
And why do those around about me assume I must always inherently comprehend what none have actually deigned to teach?
On occasion then, I am the fool my father sees.
And the disappointment that Craterus endures.
Where lies the future in all of this?
I was not gifted the precognition to know it, despite my other silent skills, but resolve from this moment forth to be the catalyst that at long last fires the dawn instead of following the dying day to dusk.