tushanshu | . v i d e o .

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. v i d e o .

[It is night, the very earliest of hours in the new day, and Louis is sitting in a dully lit room. The color of the light is a dull blue, and his face is mostly in shadow. The darkness outside and the blue-teal light give his white skin -- what can be seen of it -- a very unhealthy hue. However, his voice is soft and curious in tone, and welcoming in its calmness]

One of my most favorite of memories of my home were the crawfish. Platters full of bright red crawfish, freshly caught, steaming and soon to be bathed in seasoned butter.

[Being in the Water district has brought these distant memories back and they make him smile slightly as he thinks on it. He couldn't now remember what crawfish tasted like but he remembered that he had enjoyed it.]

Do they have here what any of you recall fondly from your own homes? More surprising to me is not what all is different here, but how much is so similar, to what I once knew.

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[Louis is completely still, listening quietly and attentively, until the mentioning of Paris and then he smiles just barely.]

Parisian wine will never be matched for those with a love for it, I think. Some of that French stubbornness comes from their vineyards, perhaps.

[It's a small joke of course, indicated by that small smile growing softly. His lack of eating familiar foods has nothing to do with being here though naturally this man couldn't know that, and Louis is content to let the assumption lie.]

Are you from Paris?

[Enjolras has to laugh at that, acknowledging the truth straight away.]

A fait accompli if I have ever heard one of those. But, yes, most recently. Cassis before, although I will admit, I am not quite so fond of those local varieties, although I might be biased by location too. Less company to be found there.

But still, it can be surprising what you are able to find that reminds you of home, sometimes. It's the smaller things, rather than the big ones sometimes, isn't it?

The small things, that is very true. I find people tend to place too much importance on objects rather than relying on the memories held to those objects in particular.

[Although this comes from the view of a lifelong aristocrat who has had enough money to easily replace entire households of objects that hold little meaning to him. It was always Lestat who wanted the big house, the expensive fabrics and large portraits. Louis was of much more simple tastes, but even still, he never wanted for anything.]

Although sometimes even the smallest token may bring us back to a precious point of memory...

But I digress. I am Louis. [Pronounced in the French manner, Louie.]

True enough.

[Enjolras has a few objects of sentimental enough value here, but certainly, they're lessened now, after having been so thoroughly lost during the war. There are, these days, some things that give him courage, for the memories attached to them, and less for the things themselves.

Well, there is a paperweight that he gave to Combeferre at Christmas, the last that they were still together that he'd made a priority to recover, scouring the marketplace until it turned up once again, but everything else, the waistcoat that came to him at the darkest point of his time here, leading him out to find life again, and courage, through the worst points of the war, the gold hoops in his ears that fill the same purpose, reminding him of heroes come before, at home... they are not what matter so much as the thing the symbols represent.

As Louis mentions memory, there, one hand comes up to tug at one of those earrings, the twin of the one he left in the trust of Taraja when they marched away to fight, and he sends a silent message to her as he does it, not that they can speak so complexly across a distance, but just a thought for her, and hope she is all right, which luckily barely takes a second there.]

Sometimes a symbol gains great power in the sense of what it invokes, too, in memory or in something else. There is a painting by a Monsieur Delacroix they've taken from the Louvre, for all the spirit of righteousness that it inspires in a time when righteousness is needed most, and the memories of the past that stir them in the heart of every son that the Republic ever birthed. The fact it has been taken away says more than enough about its power, what it really means than anything it may be worth, or even the original of the image itself.

...And I digress rather a lot myself. But all the same, some things are worth that, yes?

[And he is nodding in an introduction there.]

And my name is Enjolras.

[Louis is very content to listen, for as long as the other would tell him a story, particularly as it's of something of interest to him. Vampires stay out of the politics of the mortals but that does not mean they are not of interest, and sometimes consequence, and he enjoys listening. The way this man speaks it is more reminiscent of older times and that too catches his attention.

He is as still as a statue as he listens, his eyes unblinking and his expression unchanged. Once he has the man's name, gives a hint of a smile]

Enchanté de vous connaître.

[Louis offers the man a French version of pleasure to meet you, though his French has an unmistakable flair of Creole to it]

Monsieur, I am left with some confusion. You speak of such events as if they are current?

[Enjolras picks up the difference in the accent there, his mind turning to a few people who he had the chance to meet in Paris, with the Rights of Man Society, and all the rest. He's reminded of a law classmate, born in Haiti, but even more of an artist who also painted flats at the theatre back when Hugo's Hernani caused a Romantic stir for the ages, who had helped him to understand the major stakes involved. The man had been American, he remembers, semi vaguely, in Paris to hone his skill and learn the art of Portraiture. He can't put a name to the face now, though he remembers just enough that he's somewhat able to place the accent.]

You would be from somewhere in the Americas, then?

And ah, I do forget that I've been here quite some time now. [He admits, ducking his head a bit at the admission.] Fairly current for my life at home, two years before I came to find myself here, we had our July Revolution. It did not quite succeed but it, and the painting, are a symbol that's been taken now. It was the year 1832, if that helps explain anything.

Yes, it does...

[His voice trails off as he falls back into a tunnel of memories that come forward to him. He thinks of the first time he and Claudia stepped foot off the boat bound for France but that wasn't until about 1870 if he recalls right. In 1832 he was still in New Orleans, with Lestat, things were going well for their little family except for Claudia's growing unease and unhappiness. Louis had read about the news from France but happy in his own little world, had not followed as closely as he could have]

...help explain things. And you've got the right of it, I was French born but raised in New Orleans and lived there for much of my life. I did travel occasionally back to France.

[Not very happy memories for him but he does not hold that against the city.]

Have you been to the Americas?

Close enough to make you our fourth countryman here, I think. Congratulations, for what that is worth.

[Enjolras considers it close enough anyway, given that Midii is from so far and vast a future France that it seems more different to him than anyone from the colonies with French influence, certainly, and that the other one, from the Revolution, is probably insane. They're an odd group, the French Of Tu Vishan. It may not be an invitation Louis welcomes. At the question, he shakes his head.]

Sadly, I never had the chance. My father went, a few times with his business. I was meant to go along, when I was about fourteen but...

[But he'd sort of ruined that before it started.]

That was the year that I found politics. And spent most of school arguing with my teachers...and the monsignor. My parents decided it would not exactly be a good idea to try to trust me across an ocean while Papa's attention was going to be diverted when they'd not been able to trust me a few hours away.

[This is accompanied by a small smile.]

From what I've heard here, I have missed an opportunity here. I do know another person from...somewhere in the region of the first colonies, as they were becoming them. Completely different, I expect, from what I've heard.

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