Title: Of Jewels
Day/Theme: 12th September/"Dear Confucius"
Series: Vampire Game
Character/Pairing: Lailis, Lassen, Hume
Rating: PG-13/12


"Honeyed words and flattering looks seldom speak of love."

- Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius

Duke Lassen was kneeling before Queen Lailis's throne, holding a jewelled box in his hands. "Here," he said, raising it so that she could have a better look, "the Duke of Mil Seii presents this trinket to Her Royal Majesty Queen Lailis of Lodoc."

Hume watched the proceedings with a jaundiced eye. Too many princes came to Lodoc to woo the young Queen; they all left sooner or later, all disappointed. Lassen would be the same, for all his dark, velvet demeanour and shot silk words.

"We thank you for your gifts, cousin," Lailis said quietly, her face betraying nothing of her emotions – if she even had any, this scene had repeated itself so many times – her voice as clear and formal as it always was. "You must stay with our court for as long as you wish, there is welcome for you."

"I could not leave, having seen such beauty," Lassen assured her, his own voice low and thrumming with some indefinable emotion. Hume leaned forward to listen more closely. "It is matchless, Your Majesty, ageless, deathless."

A curious hush fell over the room, as if a secret of great masters that had been passed down for millennia was about to be revealed. Hume tensed, ready to spring – at what, at whom and why he could not say – and Lassen smiled, lazy, intimate and utterly enticing.

The Queen sat as if frozen.

-

"This is a beautiful piece," Lassen commented, letting the necklace run through his fingers and catching it again. He did this several times; Lailis thought that she would scream.

"Tell me what you know," she said, struggling for control of herself. Her hands were shaking; she pressed them together and put them in her lap.

"What do I know?" he asked softly, seemingly to the air. Lailis jerked upwards, about to strike him, but he put his hands on her shoulders and forced her slowly back down onto the stool. They stood before her dressing table, a large mirror dominating the room. They made quite a picture in it, Lailis flushing and paling alternately, her eyes wide and desperate, and Lassen's cool smile. "Sit down. I know many things."

He brushed her long brown hair away from the nape of her neck. "I know that you are looking for the Vampire King."

He brought the chain around. The metal was cold against her flesh, despite Lassen having toyed with it moments before, but then, so was he cold. "I know that you will do anything to be with him again."

He put his lips to her ear as he bent down to close the clasp of the necklace. "And I know that someone so beautiful should always get what she wants," he murmured, and straightened up, letting his fingers trail over her skin and making her shiver. His fingers paused at the base of her throat; in the mirror it looked like he was strangling her.