Application for Realityshifted
Character: Claudius (Claudia)
Series/Fandom: Vampire Babylon
Deviance: 3, instead of dying at the end of Deep in the Woods Claudius is set free by Dawn and the gang - all who die facing the dragon. Deemed to be on their side (which is kind of true) he’s forced to go on the run to avoid getting ripped apart by a pissed vampire.
Age: 564, but looks 28 or so.
Gender: Complicated. At the moment Claudius probably defines himself more as male but it’s a very shaky definition; not helped by the fact that he’s spent about 500 years mainly as a woman.
Species: Vampire
Canon Used: Just the books. (http://www.amazon.com/Woods-Vampire-Babylon-Chris-Marie/dp/0441018203, http://www.amazon.com/Path-Razors-Vampire-Babylon-Book/dp/B00342VFGY/ref=pd_sim_b_1, http://www.amazon.com/Drop-Red-Vampire-Babylon/dp/0441016812/ref=pd_sim_b_1, http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/chris-marie-green/)
Appearance: http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/David%20Tennant%20Doctor%20Who%20Hamlet%20RSC.jpg (Except without the crown, obviously) (Claudia: http://www.desktopstars.ru/md/eva-green/page1/1600/Eva-Green-1600x1200-001.jpg) (Older Claudia: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/helen-mirren-042509.jpg)
Psychology: One of the key, vital parts to Claudius’ personality is the uncertainty at the heart of him; it defines him quite firmly. In truth Claudius isn’t really sure of anything - not so much about the world, but about himself and what part he’s supposed to play. He’s been defined by others so long that he’s not sure if there really is a Claudius underneath.
The main root of this is his relationship with Mihas: and for this we’re going to have to take a brief detour into Mihas territory, I promise we’ll probably come out alright at the end of it!
Mihas was born around the same time as Claudius and served with him in the Dragon’s (AKA: The big bad) army; but they weren’t just colleagues, or even fairly close friends - no, instead they were lovers, had tumbled into bed a few hours after meeting each other and had never really been able to form anything beside that.
…Well, at least on Mihas’ side.
That was where the main problem was really. While Mihas considered Claudius mainly just another conquest and a fun thing to desire occasionally Claudius adored Mihas. Had fallen head over heels for him within the first few months of their relationship and was, at least for most of his life, unwilling to fully examine how unhealthy that was. The relationship was completely unequal - Mihas saw sex and a sensible person to dump troubles onto, Claudius saw true and never-ending love.
This, of course, was a fairly big problem.
Now, if they’d remained human things would’ve still been fairly miserable but a lot shorter and involving far less emotional trauma for Claudius. But, unfortunately, then the Dragon decided that summoning the Devil and asking for eternal life would be a great idea - and then decided to extend that great idea to his minions soldiers, giving them eternity too.
Now, Claudius was a smart man in life and, perhaps, even smarter in death - and he was also, by this point, near obsessed with Mihas. Armed with these two things it didn’t take him long to figure out that he could spend forever with Mihas as a vampire: not the puny, human idea of forever but true eternity by his side, as his consort.
If he could convince the butterfly-minded Mihas to commit to him for that long.
That was probably where Claudius’ urge to do anything to keep Mihas began. No matter that is was clear to anybody (apart from Claudius) that Mihas only cared about his own pleasures, no matter that Mihas would always chase the next attractive thing to come along… No matter, Claudius didn’t demand that Mihas should change, he only changed himself to suit Mihas better.
And that is where the confusion about his gender begins - Mihas, being his usual self, had immediately dashed off with several other generals after his transformation; not sparing a thought on Claudius or whether his obsessive affair would like to talk to him. But that was alright in Claudius’ mind, he justified it as he justified everything Mihas did… Besides, it left him time to brood on the matter.
It was mid brood, and quite a severe brood it was, that Claudius discovered something - he could turn into a cat, and not only a cat but a cat creature; one that was fast and cunning. Now, these were both nice realizations but unimportant… Very unimportant considering what Claudius discovered next. His mind fired up by the possibilities of shapeshifting he soon turned his mind to how far it could go, how it could be used to draw Mihas to him.
It was the obsession that led him to take on female form.
At first he was stunned by his change, almost scared by it - it’s important to note that this was around 1474; such a thing had never been seen before - a man changing into a woman? Impossible, unnatural - the work of the devil; they were far less tolerant times and so Claudius cowered from his new form in the mirror, he’d always been religious and so, with this entirely visible form of magic, it occurred to his terrified mind that perhaps he was cursed, that perhaps he was sinful.
But then he remembered what Mihas would think - and his heart swelled at it. Here at last was a way to keep him forever! A way to make their love entirely acceptable - he could be Mihas’ mistress and companion, and nobody would dare comment, or raise eyebrows, or point fingers and scream. And with his ability he could keep Mihas forever.
And so Claudius accepted the change; deep down he was still slightly terrified, still slightly unsure… But he accepted it, for Mihas as always. No matter that it change everything that he’d ever known about himself - it was for Mihas and that made it alright.
It was perhaps the first time that he’d fully set aside his own feelings for Mihas, and it was a pattern that was to continue down the centuries.
After a long night spent waiting, as he always did, Mihas finally arrived at the tent to show off - and in response Claudius showed off himself. Mihas was enraptured, enthralled… But soon he starting asking, could Claudius (Claudia) make himself (herself) younger? Make herself better?
She tried, of course she tried… But it wasn’t good enough for him.
It’d never be good enough for him.
They stayed in Wallachia for about two years after the change, all the while Claudius using his cunning to keep his skills a secret, keep winning back Mihas’ love… And then the Dragon got bored; faked his death and ordered his ‘children’ out into the world, out to enjoy themselves on the pathetic food around them.
Mihas, of course, immediately set off for far distant lands - and Claudius, though he would’ve been perfectly happy staying in Wallachia with his books, followed obediently. Chasing after his Mihas with the strength of obsession that he always possessed.
This pattern continued throughout the centuries - they went nearly everywhere: France, Hungary, Italy… Absolutely everywhere that they could go. And always Mihas had many, many affairs yet always Claudius remained by his side; always hoping that one day Mihas would see that Claudius was the only thing he needed.
But that day never came, and so Claudius just continued giving all of himself and getting little but physical affection in return.
It got to the point of desperation in the end: to the point where Claudius was spending all of his time as Claudia instead, to the point where she created children with Mihas just to keep his interest alive.
By this point she had started to wither: the effect of spending so much time in a body that didn’t truly bring her happiness. This dismayed her, drove her even closer to the edge of desperation - not so much because of herself (though her vanity was wounded) but because Mihas so valued youth, and now she was a crone and he was surrounded by all of their young, playful daughters. It didn’t matter that she was fairly pretty even when she looked sixty, it didn’t matter that she was still fairly strong… In Mihas’ eyes youth was the only thing that matter and so it was the only thing that mattered to her too.
Quite obviously the loss of beauty, and the loss of Mihas’ affections (he even mocked her), drove Claudia to breaking point - to the point where she would’ve done anything for just another glance from him… And so she did.
Claudia was highly cunning, that’s already been mentioned, and so she soon remembered that blood had always made her feel better - not the ordinary stuff through the mouth but the special stuff that she got through the skin, a useful skill that she’d acquired upon becoming a vampire. Obviously a lot of blood would be better, and obviously the blood of the young… And so she started murdering her children. Secretively, one every six months or so to avoid suspicion - but it was still murder, and it was still all for Mihas.
That pattern continued for eighty years or so; every six months she would have a blood bath, every six months he would fall at her feet… And then a month later he’d be off flirting with their children again as she withered back to dust. It wasn’t a situation that made her happy, in fact it was a situation that regularly stabbed her in the heart - but by that point she’d developed a touch of masochism and so it didn’t seem to matter so much.
Besides, Mihas was happy - and that was all that mattered.
The pattern would’ve carried on forever, with Claudia the only miserable one… But then a chain of annoying hunters, annoying ‘helpers’ and downright vicious children led to the discovery of her blood baths by her offspring (Mihas already knew) and so she was forced to flee, kicked out of the only home she had left.
She didn’t much care about being betrayed by her children, she saw them more as competition after all; but to be so far away from Mihas… It was a shock, and an unpleasant one at that. Never, in all 526 years of her immortality, had she been so far away from him.
It was then, heavily injured and with no way of contacting him, that she started to think, started to consider… Started it realize that her love for Mihas was mainly masochistic, that is was mainly one sided, that she’d given up everything for him and yet he’d given barely anything back to her.
Stunned and scared by these revelations he finally turned, after 100 years of only being Mihas’ Claudia, back into Claudius.
And as he turned back he realized that, by that point, Mihas would never love him as Claudius - no matter that he felt more comfortable as Claudius, no matter that being Claudia damaged him in more ways than the physical. Mihas only desired him as Claudia, only paid any attention to him when he was moulding himself perfectly to Mihas’ preferences.
He didn’t get much time to breakdown over that though - soon the annoying hunters arrived and dragged him off to their remote lair.
It was there, even as Claudius put up a protective layer of sarcasm, that he realised how truly alone he was. Mihas didn’t want his true self, his daughters had tried to kill him and nobody else would take him in. He was all alone in the darkness, and his only protectors were those that wanted to destroy his kind forever.
Really, it was only his determination to fight against them that kept him sane then - only his determination to keep very scrap of information out of their grasps. But, entirely unexpectedly, it was that stubbornness that led to him making a grounding ally of sorts.
It was also what later led him to be rejected by all of his siblings and ‘father,’ but that’ll be dealt with later.
Dawn was a kindred spirit of sorts - lonely, unsure and prone to giving more of herself than was necessary. Of course her obsession actually loved her, but they were still pretty similar and so formed a bond of thoughts… Of course, it was a bond which involved them fighting over information and haggling over the destruction of his kind; but Claudius is incapable of forming normal bonds and so it was as healthy as it could get.
Anyway, even if it was a strange bond it still led him back onto ground where determination wasn’t the only thing keeping him sane… And also led to his death being avoided.
While Claudius had been growing to respect Dawn she’d been growing to respect him right back. So, when the time came to kill him instead of actually doing it she set him free - told him to go and have a blissful few hours before he died. Claudius, perfectly happy with this plan, went - in his mind he’d either die peacefully or meet Dawn again at some point in the future, both seemed perfectly lovely options.
But things didn’t quite turn out like that.
Dawn and her team died against the Dragon, but they managed to kill Mihas first - and, through the custode Lilly, the Dragon learned that Claudius, his former protector, had been the one to give the information that allowed Dawn to get so far - this didn’t please the Dragon, in fact it rather angered him.
So Claudius, still reeling from the impact of both Mihas and Dawn’s deaths, soon found himself on the run - desperately moving to try and avoid getting killed by those that were once his allies. All alone, scared and terribly unsure about his place in the world.
Of course, this leads to big issues for Claudius - he’s got to the point where he needs somebody to obsess over, somebody to be sensible for. He spent years and years giving everything to Mihas, he knows little else but the need to give everything - and while Dawn, for a brief time, was growing into the role that Mihas left ripped and vacant… Well, now she’s dead too. And Claudius has nobody.
This means that he’s quite lonely. He doesn’t really have anybody left on his side and most of those he knew are now united against him or dead. This means, though he won’t show it, that he’s quite desperate for company of any sort. Claudius is one of those types who loathes people but needs them - he needs the distraction or else he’ll torture himself with his thoughts. And, really - he’s been alone for three months, that’s a whole lot of torture.
Another part of the fact that he’s being chased by those that were once on his side is that he feels rather betrayed. Not one of his old friends stood with him - granted, they were all terrified of the dragon but still! He has nobody, not even amongst those that once admired him so highly. This leads to a great lack of trust - Claudius finds it very hard to trust people and so he tries to drive them away; or, even if he does let them in, keeps them at a cautious distance.
He wants people but he doesn’t want to let them in; it’s a terrible paradox.
But, of course, there are more problems than just that.
One of the biggest problems is his issues with gender. Claudius was born a male and, for the sake of energy conservation, mainly stays in male form now - but he spent a good portion of his immortal life (526 years overall) in the body of Claudia, who was quite obviously a female. This leads to yet more confusion - he sometimes feels like a male, sometimes feels like a female. And will sometimes get the gender pronouns mixed up and start referring to himself as female when in a male body.
But, far more harmful than that, sometimes he doesn’t use gender at all - sometimes he falls right back to referring to himself as an ‘it’ instead.
It all refers back to his time with Mihas, as most things do. Feeling as if you’ve been born into the wrong gender is perfectly fine; but Claudius never really felt that - he changed himself purely for Mihas and always felt uncomfortable about the change underneath. Sure, the worship of Mihas was a thing to behold but that only came once every six months and very briefly even then - the rest of the time he had to deal with no attention and being uncomfortable in his body.
So, instead of falling into referring to himself as ‘her” he instead fell into referring to himself as ‘it.’ Something less, something unnatural - he recognises, to an extent, that this feeling isn’t really sensible but he can’t help it. And so he’s left with a odd clash - the superiority complex resulting from being a vampire combined with the inferiority complex of feeling the wrong gender.
It really just makes things far more confusing.
But he’s not just made up by his uncertainty; I mean, he’s mainly made up of his uncertainty but there are a few other things.
He’s intelligent, fiercely intelligent. Back in Wallachia, even before he was a vampire, he was widely recognised as the most intelligent man in the Dragon’s army and a force to be admired. Claudius isn’t one for battles or learning army theory; he’s more one for sitting up with his books, for reading up ‘til dawn and for putting his studies before everything but Mihas.
This intelligence leads neatly into cunning. Claudius is very cunning and manipulative - before he was blinded by Mihas he could usually plan ahead for most things, and now, after Mihas, he’s starting to regain that ability. He has few morals now, few principles and is very good at planning and manipulating people into place. Claudius is basically a born plotter.
This leads to him being rather selfish in some ways - he would’ve died for Mihas, and, if the situation had called for it, would’ve probably died for the Dragon. But apart from them he’s quite self concerned - as are more vampires. He’s interested mainly in his own pleasures, his own safety. And while this is becoming less of a priority he can still show stunning flashes of that old selfishness.
That makes him ruthless too, very ruthless. He had no problems in sacrificing his children to make Mihas love him. And, while he’s slowly starting to feel a little guilt, he still doesn’t feel too regretful over that. He no longer has Mihas to sacrifice packs of teenage vampires too but he’d still probably sacrifice people for his own good, would still probably manipulate people like pawns. Sometimes it’s all just a chessboard to him, and, apart from vampires at last, he’s still learning that it doesn’t have to be like that.
Of course, all of that leads to awkward social situations - for many years (at least 100) Claudius has only been attached to Mihas; and, even before he settled in London, the last good friend he had was the infamous Elizabeth Bathory. As such sometimes he isn’t sure how to act in social situations - and so comes off as aloof or shy. He doesn’t like parties, they remind him of Mihas’ orgies, and doesn’t particularly like exposing himself - all of which can make it quite difficult to form attachments.
He does try though, he needs to try.
And there are some reasons why you’d want to know him - he’s certainly, once you get to know him, very trustworthy. So trustworthy that the Dragon, when he decided to do a Sleeping Beauty, chose Claudius to look after his box. Granted, Claudius failed in the end but he kept it safe for 100 years while being surrounded by idiot teenagers and Mihas, that deserves some credit.
Another thing that he displays, when you get to know him, is that he’s very loyal - to the point where it could be regarded as another fault instead of a positive. He stayed with Mihas for all of his immortality, even when the man actually slept with others right in front of his eyes, and never once uttered a word of complaint or betrayed him - granted he, again, did fail at the end but that was only after five centuries of horrific treatment and almost getting killed by his children. His loyalty, again, deserves quite a bit of credit.
It’s that loyalty that leads nicely into Mihas. In the past three months Claudius has realised that his love for Mihas was simply an obsession that took everything from him and gave nothing in return. Being a smart person he realizes now that such a relationship isn’t acceptable and shouldn’t be sought… But a love spanning over 500 years doesn’t go away that easily. He still loves Mihas in a way, will possibly always love Mihas, and that leads to a heavy sense of self loathing at times.
But onto more cheerful matters! He also has a sense of humour - he uses sarcasm to protect himself from enquiries that go too deep, uses sarcasm to keep him sane. Claudius has never been one for battles and strife - he’s more likely to make your cheeks flare with a barb than to rip your throat out.
But it isn’t just sarcasm that he likes - he can also appreciate a joke. He’s grown to the point where he quite likes quips, quite likes wit. In fact he almost considers it a art form - far better to insult the mind than to assault the body in his opinion. And so he’s learnt the art of laughter, he can still get offended but compared to certain other vampires he’s a lot more likely to smirk.
Other things he likes are these: cats, he does love cats. His vampire form even resembles a cat - he admires their cunning, their indifference and their habit of treating everybody around them like dirt. And, incidentally, they’re the one animal species that won’t either try to kill him or run for the hills.
He also likes movies, Claudius likes to think of himself as a man of culture - thus he often reads classical books (even if he remembers when they were new), listens to classical music and watches artistic movies. He used to have a habit of going to see French cinema with another teacher and, although being on the run from a rather angry vampire rather stops that hobby, he still has a rather high love for film and culture.
One final, serious point though is the way he approaches religion. As stated below Claudius’ weakness is religious objects - they burn him, make him cower back in terror. This was because of the time he was raised in - his family was highly religious and Claudius, unlike some vampires (*cough*Mihas*Cough*), actually took this fairly seriously and, through his mortal life and through the first few years of vampire life, spent a fair amount of time brooding on his sins.
Of course, over the years with Mihas this has faded somewhat - he still carries that residual fear of sin and, by extension, religion but he’s a lot more unsure about it now. Religion is still a subject that makes him very uncomfortable and, if possible, he’ll try to avoid it to the best of his abilities.
..So! That’s basically Claudius - horribly uncertain, terribly confused and often very sarcastic. He’s not a healthy man/vampire at all - but he’s certainly starting to try.
Other Skills/Abilities: -Can speak Romanian, French, Italian, English and bits of German.
-Increased healing.
-Increased speed.
-Can turn into a cat.
-Can turn into a cat beast; a form that basically resembles a rather annoyed panther on two legs.
-Can turn into a woman
-A little stronger than most humans.
-Increased sense of smell.
-Utterly immune to silver.
-Can, if he chooses, charm people to do things for him - but he rarely chooses these days.
-Can drink blood through his skin, quite a useful skill.
-Has no problems with seeing in the dark, actually finds it easier than the light at times.
-Can call animals to his aid, those this really shouldn’t come into play.
Other Weaknesses: -Has a horrible weakness to anything holy: from crosses to holy water.
-All animals hate him; all apart from cats.
-Still horribly weak from when his children attacked him; so is, at the moment, roughly the strength of a fairly fit man.
--This also means that you can still, if you look closely enough, see the tendons in his neck.
---And his legs.
-He also can’t run that fast because of his injuries, his legs would prevent him.
-Will immediately crumble into dust even if exposed to a match. Being a vampire can suck at times.
-Fairly weak in sunlight; most of his powers fade and he gets the irresistible urge to sleep,
-He can shapeshift but if he holds a form that isn’t Claudius for too long then he slowly starts to wither.
-Has the usual hunger that vampires experience, is still very addicted to blood.
-Absolutely useless when it comes to military matters; can barely hold a sword right despite being in the army.
-Constantly tired from feeling vampires; this makes him quite vulnerable.
History: (A lot of this was covered in the psychology section, so some bits may be repeated)
Once upon a time, around 1446, a male child called Claudius was born on the borders of Wallachia.
He had a normal enough upbringing for that time he supposes; his father and mother didn’t love each other but respected each other anyway, he followed a heir and was followed by a little sister and he had a fair few friends in the surrounding villages. Considering the time he was raised fairly religiously and took his religion fairly seriously; and also would’ve been taught a few basics by his father - languages (fairly good), military theory (fairly bad), writing (very good), a little hand to hand fighting (very bad), reading (excellent) and fighting with a sword (abysmal.)
In fact the only thing that wasn’t normal about his upbringing was that he was raised with a respect of women - His mother was quite obviously more intelligent than his father, and his little sister was quite obviously more intelligent than his big brother. As a result Claudius spent a lot more time with the female side of his family and learned to respect them - forming an impression of them as equals instead of wenches only fit to bear children. It’s an impression that’s still with him.
Anyway, this pattern of normality continued until he was twenty or so - then, being the younger son, he was finally called up for military service. Finally ordered to leave the only home that he’d ever known - not knowing that it was the last time that he’d see it or his family Claudius quite happily complied, and rode off into a bright, hopeful sunset…
It happened within an hour of entering the camp, practically a few seconds after the faintly terrified Claudius had bowed before the Dragon. He’d wandered off from his guides and was vaguely considering where the most books would be… And then he bumped into Mihas.
Mihas was, no denying it, attractive enough to make Claudius’ heart flutter on first sight. But he wasn’t just that: he was charming, smiling, flirting… And, although Claudius didn’t discover it ‘til far later, he was also the camp bicycle and practiced at seducing innocents.
Claudius was something new, something fairly attractive… And so, within a few hours, he found himself in Mihas’ bed. Vaguely puzzled, vaguely terrified but a whole lot of fun at the time.
But it didn’t stop there - perhaps it would’ve been better if it had. Pretty much everybody in the camp had experienced a fling with Mihas, even Costin who practically strode around bellowing ‘I AM SEER, WORSHIP ME!’ and glaring was rumoured to have had something. But, for the most part, nobody carried it beyond one time - all of them were too aware that Mihas could never commit, could never restrain himself from chasing after the next pretty thing that came along; and most considered a butterfly-minded sex addict not worth execution if it came out.
All except Claudius that was.
In the next few months he pined after Mihas near constantly… But at the same time he was proving himself. It became pretty obvious fairly soon that he was, possibly, the very worst swordsman in the camp but he certainly had other skills - it was because of his plans that most of the Dragon’s victories were won, and that not only led to general appreciation but Mihas’ appreciation.
Soon they were sleeping together on a regular basis; and soon Claudius was learning just how having your heart ripped out on a regular basis felt. At some point Claudius had gone beyond being puzzled and fearing sin and instead had gone into loving Mihas with all of his heart.
But Mihas would never love him in the same way.
This continued for eight years uninterrupted; Claudius, eventually, took a fairly understanding wife who brought the dowry of a cat and Mihas had several wives, some of them even his own - but even with matrimony Claudius didn’t stop obsessing over Mihas, and Mihas didn’t stop manipulating Claudius into his bed. It was all deeply unhealthy - but Claudius was determined to be cheerful about it; he had friends, he had an understanding wife, he had a much loved cat…
And then, in his twenty eighth year, his wife died… Which was quite a bummer really considering that she was basically his best friend - but, unfortunately for his wife, that wasn’t the main thing that happened that year; there were far worse things to come.
The Dragon, you see, had been having a long running feud with the Ottomans - and was, by 1474, getting rather annoyed at their continued attempts to crush his country. So, when the Devil visited him on one very dark night (the Devil likes drama) the Dragon, despite his religious leanings, leapt at the chance to become immortal and all-powerful; to destroy his enemies at last.
Of course, he needed an army - and so the existing one was dragged into immortality too; which, of course, included Claudius.
At first Claudius, who was still very religious, was terrified at the thought of becoming immortal, of drinking blood… He considered it a sin, thought that it’d make him unnatural in the eyes of the lord.
But then he saw Mihas, drinking blood like the finest wine… And, as always, he decided that he’d do anything to keep Mihas’ eyes on him.
So Claudius became a vampire, and didn’t feel that overjoyed about it.
Mihas, as seen above, immediately ran off to frolic in his new form - but Claudius, still stunned from the change, stayed behind - and researched. He discovered most of his abilities in that long night, and immediately showed them off to Mihas when he returned - who was, of course, quite impressed by Claudius’ ability to turn into a woman… But not impressed enough.
It didn’t matter that much for the first two years - Claudius didn’t have much opportunity to take on female form anyway. They stayed with the army for that time after all; and while Mihas accepted the change in private Claudius wasn’t stupid - a simple loss of life wouldn’t erase prejudices so deeply ingrained.
But then that all changed - the Dragon, so enamoured of immortal life that he forget why he’d taken it, faked his own death and ordered his ‘children’ to spread out into the world and have fun. Eventually they would rise up and rip apart their allies - but until then there was an entire world out there to experience.
Mihas didn’t need to hear it again, he immediately set off for the big wide world - and Claudius, ever loyal, trailed after him.
For those first 100 years they mainly stayed around the Wallachia area - driven, in part, by Mihas’ ridiculous desire to sleep with every single member of a family. Claudius was hurt by this, had no option but to be hurt by this, but still stayed by Mihas’ side - still obediently cleared up the messes that his obsession left behind. They met many people in those days, many faces - and Claudius changed accordingly; one day Mihas’ obedient travelling companion, the next his loving mistress.
It was while he was wearing the form of the mistress that they were invited to the castle of Elizabeth Báthory; it was inevitable really - somebody so addicted to blood could hardly resist the sight of actual vampires.
By that point Claudius had started to notice something, something almost small - when he stayed as Claudius, as he did half the time, he still looked twenty eight, just as Mihas still looked thirty and the Dragon still probably looked in his forties. But when he was Claudia… Well, there’d be a wrinkle there, a grey hair on her head - a line that had no right to appear on a woman who should be stuck in her late twenties.
To be Claudia meant that he had to age; and that terrified him.
By the time they came to Elizabeth Báthory’s castle he’d already been taking blood baths for about five years, and didn’t know quite how to feel about that… Well, it was hardly like the bloody countess would help settle his feelings on the matter. He accidently introduced her to the concept of a blood bath, and in return she strengthened his resolve on continuing with them.
She also gave him directions to a woman who made love potions - and Claudius, despite his former aversion to anything ‘pagan,’ immediately followed them; immediately found her and purchased her entire stock… It didn’t work, but still he kept trying.
And soon they left the countess and started wandering again; Mihas declaring that he was bored with the area around Wallachia and immediately wandering off to pastures new - Claudius, who would’ve been perfectly happy with staying in his home country, only gave a big sigh and followed yet again.
They spent most of the next 300 years or so gallivanting around France and Germany… Well, Mihas did. Claudius simply kept cleaning up the messes that always resulted and noting, with a heavy sense of dismay, that Claudia was now starting to resemble a woman in her late forties. It was a miserable time for him; but Mihas was happy and so it was all fine.
But things were about to get a lot worse.
For most of the 1800s, ever since the French revolution and death to the aristocracy, Claudius had just managed to keep Mihas wandering around Germany and, occasionally, Italy - but then one night, just as Claudius had watched Mihas go off with another maiden, a call came.
A call from the Dragon.
Claudius, taking a sort of glee from the act, immediately ripped Mihas from his innocent maid and hurried back to Wallachia at top speed - barely stopping for blood along the way. He just managed to take back on the form of Claudius before he arrived but it was a close run thing - he was so excited after all; perhaps the Dragon had heard of his troubles with Mihas and was calling them to give a strict lecture about monogamy!
But no, even as a human the Dragon was never that kind - and the happiness of his ‘children’ mattered little to him.
Instead he repeated what he’d told all of his remaining children: that he was tired of mortal life, that he wanted one day to rise up and rip apart the human scum that covered the earth… But it had to be a surprise; and so he would sleep for over a hundred years - leaving his ‘children’ to build armies and manipulate the earth from the shadows.
He told all of his ‘children’ that… But to Claudius he added a second request. He’d always been the smartest of the Dragon’s soldiers, and the Dragon still considered him so - a passionate, firey soldier would only lead to him being ripped apart by hunters before he had the chance to rise. And so Claudius seemed the perfect option - smart, cunning and very loyal.
Claudius, immediately seeing a chance to tie Mihas down, accepted happily - and stayed with the Dragon and his custodes, specially bred guards, in Wallachia; perfectly ready to wait out the next century or so with Mihas.
But Mihas had entirely different ideas: he was still a child at heart and had no intention to stop his wandering yet, even for the dragon. He told the dismayed Claudius as much and immediately departed - leaving Claudius abandoned, alone and unable to follow.
For fifty miserable years it pretty much stayed like this - Claudius staying constantly as Claudia and awaiting Mihas’ rare visits eagerly; well aware that he was far away and probably entertaining maidens at every possible moment. And even when he did visit he mocked her more than he adored her - called her too old, too withered, too jealous.
By the end it got to the point where Claudia considered starving herself of blood to end the pain; at least she wouldn’t be apart from him anymore, at least he wouldn’t mock her… But then, in the early 1930s, another message came, this one from Mihas. He’d found a place to settle! A place where he wouldn’t mind staying forever.
No matter that it was in England, no matter that it’d take several months of hard travel and moving the custodes… No matter; she’d be with Mihas again!
And so she travelled, and so she settled with Mihas again - and the reunion was joyous and passionate… But yet again there were troubles; there would always be troubles for Claudia.
First she had to deal with a certain Thomas Gatenby - who Mihas was quite obviously sleeping with while stealing his money at the same time, then there was also the Dragon’s unfortunate order to create a bigger army by the time he rose again and, finally, there was the fact that Claudia had started to starve herself of blood by the time Mihas’ message again.
She recovered from the starvation, what with the varied blood found as she travelled to Mihas, but her body was less inclined to bounce back - yet again she considered herself ugly and old, her form now looked to be a woman in her late sixties, and yet again Mihas was wondering. She worried that soon he would obey the order for children, make Thomas Gatenby into a vampire and leave her for good…
Luckily Claudia, despite all her hardships, was still cunning - and so she found a way to fix all three problems at once.
First of all she persuaded Mihas that Thomas Gatenby was really vampire material; with her cunning, and some help from the custodes, she managed to convince Mihas that the poor boy would faint at the sight of blood, that it’d really be far easier to just let him die instead of welcoming him into immortality. Luckily her persuasion worked - Mihas ensured Gatenby’s death and Gatenby leaving them all his money.
With this money Claudia started work; while Mihas partied all night she worked to recruit discreet builders to make the, already existing but abandoned, underground habitable again. It was already carved so that it only took a matter of years - and, following that, she turned her eyes to finally recruiting ‘children’ to the Dragon’s cause.
Unfortunately for her Mihas already had his eyes on some children.
Mihas had always been prone to seducing the young, even as a human, and as a vampire this urge only strengthened - his favorite pastime in London, alongside Gatenby, had been stalking around a local boarding school for the young, female and rich, Queenshill, and seducing the girls. He immediately made his desires clear to Claudia - if he had to have children cramping his style he wanted pretty young maidens
Claudia, at the start, was horrified - she, old and ugly, was supposed to watch while he seduced the pretty and the young? It seemed too cruel even for him!
But soon, as she always did, she started to justify it - and started to see the positives. Bleeding a person out had always given her skin a glow, the blood of the young even more so - and as for the blood of a young vampire…
She experimented at first, turned a young explorer without Mihas’ knowledge and cut her throat, ate her organs, drunk the girl’s blood through her skin… And it worked! When Claudia looked at herself in the mirror she found herself a beauty of twenty eight again, wonderfully fresh, wonderfully seductive.
That night she finally seduced Mihas back to her bed again, and that night she decided - she would allow him his ‘daughters’ if he would allow her their lives. They would make her pretty again, make Mihas look at her again…
So, every two years Claudia hand picked seven girls - rich, posh, European… But abandoned, dependant; ones whose parents would not question their daughter’s nighttime practices, or who wouldn’t question if their daughters… Disappeared. From every seven Claudia always killed four, and she felt no guilt for it’d make Mihas look at her again and not see just a ragged, old crone; that made everything worth it.
And so another pattern started - for eighty years or so Mihas’ affections would wane and Claudia would go to increasingly ridiculous lengths to get him back. About 160 vampire girls died, their throats ripped out to feed Claudia’s beauty… And yet life went on; the survivors moved on to the underground unknowing their classmates true fates and every two years there was a new, innocent crop of beauty products to choose from. Things weren’t alright at all; but Claudia could play pretend and that had to be good enough.
And then three very bad things happened in very quick succession.
The first very bad thing was that the newest class started, after she’d eaten the one with terribly black hair (Claudia didn’t really bother to learn their names; they’d soon be eaten or gone after all), to suspect that something was wrong with the picture; the brainless one and the mouthy one had both, mysteriously, been rather popular and had both left rather suddenly - and now a third one? Of course they knew something was up.
But this alone wasn’t all that worrying to Claudia, she’d been doing it for eighty odd years after all - the girls always got a little shifty after three of their ever close classmates had left; but, at the same time, the girls always got distracted by the promise of the underground and Mihas - her secret was perfectly safe, and she was perfectly beautiful.
Then, around the same time as the suspicions started, Dawn and her gang of hunters rolled into town - discovering a unfortunate burial ground and killing one of the current custodes while they were at it. And then they had the cheek to attack Queenshill and send the girls running to her for shelter!
Really, such rude hunters - ones that made running away necessary - and, as if enough things hadn’t gone wrong already, the leader of the girls had a rebellious moment and decided to run off without a glance back - luckily Della (the only one of the girls who Claudia had bothered to learn) caught her and killed her with ravens before she could get too far; but it was still annoying and resulted in another loss.
….Not that annoying though; the leader had been an utter cow after all. It was a bit annoying that Claudia now had to make plans to eat Della, her favorite (though that wasn’t saying a lot with Claudia), instead but it would’ve been alright in the end. In fact the hunters would’ve almost been more positive - she could’ve, along the line, manipulated the girls into believing that the hunters had killed Della and thus created greater underground unity. Everything would’ve been perfect!
But there was still one very bad thing to come.
For eighty years, ever since they’d all arrived in London, the custodes had faded to the background - more a shadow, a whisper amongst the ‘children’ that they’d created together. They were all male, all strong… And over time all lazy, all complacent. After a hundred years of sleep, and no hunters showing up, they almost started to believe that they were completely safe from anything - and so, instead of guarding the Dragon as they should’ve done, they turned more to helping the underground instead; to helping Claudia win back Mihas over and over again.
But then the hunters arrived in town, and accidently killed a custode that was investigating them. He was the last male of the line besides his already activated brother, and since there must always be two… His sister was activated in his place.
Lilly was new, rebellious, young - and Claudia actually liked her at first; she seemed a more passionate sort than those who’d gone before, a sort who didn’t let repressed scorn lurk in her eyes when she talked. It was new, refreshing - and Claudia looked forward to things going on as they always had, except with more sympathetic custodes.
Unfortunately Lilly had different ideas.
She thought she was acting for the good of the underground; in fact, in the end, she’d almost convinced herself that she was actually acting for the good of Claudia - Lilly wanted the old vampire out; wanted a new age of soldiers to come in. And, unknowing that it was actually Claudia in charge of the Dragon, she was determined to do anything to achieve that.
Without Claudia’s permission, or knowledge, she took the vampire’s memories and inserted them into Della’s head - giving her visions of Claudia’s past, of what she’d done. Della saw all the times that Claudia had been rejected, all the ties that she’d been left behind…
And Della, who was quite smart herself, figured out exactly what’d been happening to her classmates.
Understandably a bit annoyed by this developed she summoned her siblings and, after convincing them of Claudia’s guilt, they all attacked their ‘mother’ together - half killing her with the passion of their attack. Claudia, weak from pining and lack of practice, had no choice but to flee - throat and legs almost ripped open as she fled into the night.
Somehow she just about managed to heal herself, at least to the point where she wasn’t about to accidently rip her legs off, and immediately went in search of a victim for a blood bath - she had to look beautiful again, had to seduce Mihas again so he’d destroy the defects that’d hurt her so.
But, as covered above, she had several realizations as she dragged her victim to a abandoned apartment… And that was when she turned back into a him; finally taking his true form again after 100 years as Claudia.
He didn’t have long to revel in that though - soon Dawn and her hunters arrived and immediately h was captured. He fought, of course… But it was a rather uneven fight when he was injured, they had resistance to his charm and one of them had bloody mind powers that could throw him against walls!
Really, very rude people.
With him subdued that took him back to their lair, ripped away his self confidence a bit more while interrogating him… And then their boss set off to catch Mihas and he was left all alone with them; all alone to discover that Dawn really was a kindred spirit.
He couldn’t revel in that either - soon enough his ‘daughters’ came looking to finish the job they started and they were forced to flee yet again; this time ending up in a set of rooms deep underground; here they interrogated him a bit more - but he wouldn’t give, he wouldn’t give….
Until he did, and even today he’s still not so sure if he meant to or not.
He gave Dawn information about the custodes family home, a lovely gothic mansion with the usual incest and insanity contained within, and watched her return with the papers from there with a due sense of shock - so much shock that he, accidently again, gave her the location of the underground, the place where she could find her mysteriously vanished boss and the Dragon.
And that should’ve been the end of him, should’ve been the cue to chop off his head and let him crumble into dust…
But at the same time as he’d been learning to respect Dawn she’d somehow been learning to respect him. Instead of killing him she released him and told him to flee to a happy place, a place where he could crumble into dust with a smile on his face and, quite possibly, a song in his heart.
Claudius didn’t need telling twice.
Using what remained of his speed, which wasn’t much by that point, he escaped from underground and shot off towards the sea; not really knowing where he was going, only really knowing that he wanted to be somewhere peaceful for his inevitable, long awaited death…
And then he felt Mihas die, which was expected but still rather a stomach punch that forced him to halt… But, soon after that he felt the Dragon flare back into life in his head, a loud bellow echoing out to any vampires that remained - the return of his old master could only mean one thing: that Dawn had died.
Which meant that he was all alone, without a friend in the world.
And things were about to get a hell of a lot worse.
The Dragon, after getting done with roasting interlopers and yelling at useless custodes, happened to actually talk to the soldiers that remained on the scene - and Della, who’d survived by the skin of her teeth, happened to be amongst them. Being a good soldier, who’d had three of her best friends eaten, she promptly told the Dragon that it was probably Claudius that’d given the information leading to his hiding place.
The Dragon happened to be a little bit annoyed by that: but hey, at least he had the courtesy to contact Claudius and inform him about his immanent doom.
Claudius, upon receiving this rather terse message, found his survival instinct immediately kicking in and fled to France at top speed, barely stopping for breath before he continued on from the port - constantly moving, constantly terrified that the Dragon will catch up with him and rip him apart… And that’s how it’s been for the past three months; never stopping, never even pausing for breath.
It’s quite a miserable life really… Until he stumbles into a rather mysterious shop and encounters a plane of stars.
Yep, then it just gets weird.
Canon Point: AU, 3 months or so after the end of “Deep In The Woods” - AKA about February 2010.
Reality Description: Basically the same as Sorin’s reality - except based around Europe instead; specifically upper Italy at the moment because he doesn’t want to be predictable.
To put it simply it’s basically modern day - people carrying around I-phones, people watching the Simpsons, people driving cars… On the surface it all seems perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary in fact.
But underneath there be vampires.
Basically vampires abilities vary from line to line - Claudius comes from a different line to Sorin, and was turned by the Dragon, and so his abilities are different from Sorin’s. Claudius’ line can now, since Mihas died, turn into cat creatures resembling panthers on two legs, they can also call animals to their aid and drink blood through their skin, just like Claudius.
They also have a higher resistance to light than Sorin’s line - Claudius can, if he wishes, stay out in the sunshine all day with few side effects. But this is very hard for him to do - as stated in the weaknesses section he gets very lethargic in sunlight and wants to sleep all the time. This is a skill that transfers to his children.
Other things that differentiate his line from the others are slightly more elegance than the Hollywood line, an increased longing for blood (a hangover from Mihas) and being repelled by holy objects instead of silver. Otherwise they’re similar to Sorin’s vampires: their abilities dilute along the line, they can be turned human again if their parent is killed (though if they have two parents as in the case of Claudius’ offspring they’ll just get weaker if one is killed) and fire has a very high chance of harming them.
There are other creatures though: but only one really applies to Claudius. While the Dragon mad ea deal with the Devil he was really reaching a bit high - in Claudius’ world it’s more common, if you do choose to deal with pure evil, to get a lesser demon to take your soul. One of the more prominent demons about at the moment is a guy who happily sucks emotions out of people and leaves them to die as husks. And, considering that Claudius is a fleeing vampire who happens to feel rather lost, he’s very likely to notice the poor boy at some point.
Now, onto the NPCs!
There are two main NPCs in Claudius’ reality, now that Mihas and Dawn are dead: and the first one just has to be Della. Della is Claudius’ ‘child’ and a fairly young vampire: being still the age that she was turned at.
However, while she’s very young she’s also got a very big grudge against her ‘mother’ Quite reasonably she blames him for the deaths of three of her friends. And so, feeling the urge for revenge and also having some residual awareness (sort of a psychic link between parent and child vampires) leftover, she’s been placed in charge of finding him. She hasn’t quite caught up yet but she’s got close a few times. And, considering that she’s only a little weaker than him now, their eventual confrontation is bound to be fun.
The second important NPC that Claudius has is his maker, the Dragon. Once an important warlord in Wallachia he did a deal with the Devil for eternal life and took his army along for the ride. He’s mean, bloodthirsty and very likely to rip apart anybody that stands against him; which is precisely what happened to Dawn and the gang.
Oh, and he can actually turn into a dragon - the subtlety is amazing there.
So, basically Claudius’ reality is a fairly ordinary modern day setting… Except he’s being chased by several very angry vampires and a guy who can turn into a dragon, and has the risk of being stalked by an emotion eating demon.
Life is very fun!
Series/Fandom: Vampire Babylon
Deviance: 3, instead of dying at the end of Deep in the Woods Claudius is set free by Dawn and the gang - all who die facing the dragon. Deemed to be on their side (which is kind of true) he’s forced to go on the run to avoid getting ripped apart by a pissed vampire.
Age: 564, but looks 28 or so.
Gender: Complicated. At the moment Claudius probably defines himself more as male but it’s a very shaky definition; not helped by the fact that he’s spent about 500 years mainly as a woman.
Species: Vampire
Canon Used: Just the books. (http://www.amazon.com/Woods-Vampire-Babylon-Chris-Marie/dp/0441018203, http://www.amazon.com/Path-Razors-Vampire-Babylon-Book/dp/B00342VFGY/ref=pd_sim_b_1, http://www.amazon.com/Drop-Red-Vampire-Babylon/dp/0441016812/ref=pd_sim_b_1, http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/chris-marie-green/)
Appearance: http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/David%20Tennant%20Doctor%20Who%20Hamlet%20RSC.jpg (Except without the crown, obviously) (Claudia: http://www.desktopstars.ru/md/eva-green/page1/1600/Eva-Green-1600x1200-001.jpg) (Older Claudia: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/helen-mirren-042509.jpg)
Psychology: One of the key, vital parts to Claudius’ personality is the uncertainty at the heart of him; it defines him quite firmly. In truth Claudius isn’t really sure of anything - not so much about the world, but about himself and what part he’s supposed to play. He’s been defined by others so long that he’s not sure if there really is a Claudius underneath.
The main root of this is his relationship with Mihas: and for this we’re going to have to take a brief detour into Mihas territory, I promise we’ll probably come out alright at the end of it!
Mihas was born around the same time as Claudius and served with him in the Dragon’s (AKA: The big bad) army; but they weren’t just colleagues, or even fairly close friends - no, instead they were lovers, had tumbled into bed a few hours after meeting each other and had never really been able to form anything beside that.
…Well, at least on Mihas’ side.
That was where the main problem was really. While Mihas considered Claudius mainly just another conquest and a fun thing to desire occasionally Claudius adored Mihas. Had fallen head over heels for him within the first few months of their relationship and was, at least for most of his life, unwilling to fully examine how unhealthy that was. The relationship was completely unequal - Mihas saw sex and a sensible person to dump troubles onto, Claudius saw true and never-ending love.
This, of course, was a fairly big problem.
Now, if they’d remained human things would’ve still been fairly miserable but a lot shorter and involving far less emotional trauma for Claudius. But, unfortunately, then the Dragon decided that summoning the Devil and asking for eternal life would be a great idea - and then decided to extend that great idea to his minions soldiers, giving them eternity too.
Now, Claudius was a smart man in life and, perhaps, even smarter in death - and he was also, by this point, near obsessed with Mihas. Armed with these two things it didn’t take him long to figure out that he could spend forever with Mihas as a vampire: not the puny, human idea of forever but true eternity by his side, as his consort.
If he could convince the butterfly-minded Mihas to commit to him for that long.
That was probably where Claudius’ urge to do anything to keep Mihas began. No matter that is was clear to anybody (apart from Claudius) that Mihas only cared about his own pleasures, no matter that Mihas would always chase the next attractive thing to come along… No matter, Claudius didn’t demand that Mihas should change, he only changed himself to suit Mihas better.
And that is where the confusion about his gender begins - Mihas, being his usual self, had immediately dashed off with several other generals after his transformation; not sparing a thought on Claudius or whether his obsessive affair would like to talk to him. But that was alright in Claudius’ mind, he justified it as he justified everything Mihas did… Besides, it left him time to brood on the matter.
It was mid brood, and quite a severe brood it was, that Claudius discovered something - he could turn into a cat, and not only a cat but a cat creature; one that was fast and cunning. Now, these were both nice realizations but unimportant… Very unimportant considering what Claudius discovered next. His mind fired up by the possibilities of shapeshifting he soon turned his mind to how far it could go, how it could be used to draw Mihas to him.
It was the obsession that led him to take on female form.
At first he was stunned by his change, almost scared by it - it’s important to note that this was around 1474; such a thing had never been seen before - a man changing into a woman? Impossible, unnatural - the work of the devil; they were far less tolerant times and so Claudius cowered from his new form in the mirror, he’d always been religious and so, with this entirely visible form of magic, it occurred to his terrified mind that perhaps he was cursed, that perhaps he was sinful.
But then he remembered what Mihas would think - and his heart swelled at it. Here at last was a way to keep him forever! A way to make their love entirely acceptable - he could be Mihas’ mistress and companion, and nobody would dare comment, or raise eyebrows, or point fingers and scream. And with his ability he could keep Mihas forever.
And so Claudius accepted the change; deep down he was still slightly terrified, still slightly unsure… But he accepted it, for Mihas as always. No matter that it change everything that he’d ever known about himself - it was for Mihas and that made it alright.
It was perhaps the first time that he’d fully set aside his own feelings for Mihas, and it was a pattern that was to continue down the centuries.
After a long night spent waiting, as he always did, Mihas finally arrived at the tent to show off - and in response Claudius showed off himself. Mihas was enraptured, enthralled… But soon he starting asking, could Claudius (Claudia) make himself (herself) younger? Make herself better?
She tried, of course she tried… But it wasn’t good enough for him.
It’d never be good enough for him.
They stayed in Wallachia for about two years after the change, all the while Claudius using his cunning to keep his skills a secret, keep winning back Mihas’ love… And then the Dragon got bored; faked his death and ordered his ‘children’ out into the world, out to enjoy themselves on the pathetic food around them.
Mihas, of course, immediately set off for far distant lands - and Claudius, though he would’ve been perfectly happy staying in Wallachia with his books, followed obediently. Chasing after his Mihas with the strength of obsession that he always possessed.
This pattern continued throughout the centuries - they went nearly everywhere: France, Hungary, Italy… Absolutely everywhere that they could go. And always Mihas had many, many affairs yet always Claudius remained by his side; always hoping that one day Mihas would see that Claudius was the only thing he needed.
But that day never came, and so Claudius just continued giving all of himself and getting little but physical affection in return.
It got to the point of desperation in the end: to the point where Claudius was spending all of his time as Claudia instead, to the point where she created children with Mihas just to keep his interest alive.
By this point she had started to wither: the effect of spending so much time in a body that didn’t truly bring her happiness. This dismayed her, drove her even closer to the edge of desperation - not so much because of herself (though her vanity was wounded) but because Mihas so valued youth, and now she was a crone and he was surrounded by all of their young, playful daughters. It didn’t matter that she was fairly pretty even when she looked sixty, it didn’t matter that she was still fairly strong… In Mihas’ eyes youth was the only thing that matter and so it was the only thing that mattered to her too.
Quite obviously the loss of beauty, and the loss of Mihas’ affections (he even mocked her), drove Claudia to breaking point - to the point where she would’ve done anything for just another glance from him… And so she did.
Claudia was highly cunning, that’s already been mentioned, and so she soon remembered that blood had always made her feel better - not the ordinary stuff through the mouth but the special stuff that she got through the skin, a useful skill that she’d acquired upon becoming a vampire. Obviously a lot of blood would be better, and obviously the blood of the young… And so she started murdering her children. Secretively, one every six months or so to avoid suspicion - but it was still murder, and it was still all for Mihas.
That pattern continued for eighty years or so; every six months she would have a blood bath, every six months he would fall at her feet… And then a month later he’d be off flirting with their children again as she withered back to dust. It wasn’t a situation that made her happy, in fact it was a situation that regularly stabbed her in the heart - but by that point she’d developed a touch of masochism and so it didn’t seem to matter so much.
Besides, Mihas was happy - and that was all that mattered.
The pattern would’ve carried on forever, with Claudia the only miserable one… But then a chain of annoying hunters, annoying ‘helpers’ and downright vicious children led to the discovery of her blood baths by her offspring (Mihas already knew) and so she was forced to flee, kicked out of the only home she had left.
She didn’t much care about being betrayed by her children, she saw them more as competition after all; but to be so far away from Mihas… It was a shock, and an unpleasant one at that. Never, in all 526 years of her immortality, had she been so far away from him.
It was then, heavily injured and with no way of contacting him, that she started to think, started to consider… Started it realize that her love for Mihas was mainly masochistic, that is was mainly one sided, that she’d given up everything for him and yet he’d given barely anything back to her.
Stunned and scared by these revelations he finally turned, after 100 years of only being Mihas’ Claudia, back into Claudius.
And as he turned back he realized that, by that point, Mihas would never love him as Claudius - no matter that he felt more comfortable as Claudius, no matter that being Claudia damaged him in more ways than the physical. Mihas only desired him as Claudia, only paid any attention to him when he was moulding himself perfectly to Mihas’ preferences.
He didn’t get much time to breakdown over that though - soon the annoying hunters arrived and dragged him off to their remote lair.
It was there, even as Claudius put up a protective layer of sarcasm, that he realised how truly alone he was. Mihas didn’t want his true self, his daughters had tried to kill him and nobody else would take him in. He was all alone in the darkness, and his only protectors were those that wanted to destroy his kind forever.
Really, it was only his determination to fight against them that kept him sane then - only his determination to keep very scrap of information out of their grasps. But, entirely unexpectedly, it was that stubbornness that led to him making a grounding ally of sorts.
It was also what later led him to be rejected by all of his siblings and ‘father,’ but that’ll be dealt with later.
Dawn was a kindred spirit of sorts - lonely, unsure and prone to giving more of herself than was necessary. Of course her obsession actually loved her, but they were still pretty similar and so formed a bond of thoughts… Of course, it was a bond which involved them fighting over information and haggling over the destruction of his kind; but Claudius is incapable of forming normal bonds and so it was as healthy as it could get.
Anyway, even if it was a strange bond it still led him back onto ground where determination wasn’t the only thing keeping him sane… And also led to his death being avoided.
While Claudius had been growing to respect Dawn she’d been growing to respect him right back. So, when the time came to kill him instead of actually doing it she set him free - told him to go and have a blissful few hours before he died. Claudius, perfectly happy with this plan, went - in his mind he’d either die peacefully or meet Dawn again at some point in the future, both seemed perfectly lovely options.
But things didn’t quite turn out like that.
Dawn and her team died against the Dragon, but they managed to kill Mihas first - and, through the custode Lilly, the Dragon learned that Claudius, his former protector, had been the one to give the information that allowed Dawn to get so far - this didn’t please the Dragon, in fact it rather angered him.
So Claudius, still reeling from the impact of both Mihas and Dawn’s deaths, soon found himself on the run - desperately moving to try and avoid getting killed by those that were once his allies. All alone, scared and terribly unsure about his place in the world.
Of course, this leads to big issues for Claudius - he’s got to the point where he needs somebody to obsess over, somebody to be sensible for. He spent years and years giving everything to Mihas, he knows little else but the need to give everything - and while Dawn, for a brief time, was growing into the role that Mihas left ripped and vacant… Well, now she’s dead too. And Claudius has nobody.
This means that he’s quite lonely. He doesn’t really have anybody left on his side and most of those he knew are now united against him or dead. This means, though he won’t show it, that he’s quite desperate for company of any sort. Claudius is one of those types who loathes people but needs them - he needs the distraction or else he’ll torture himself with his thoughts. And, really - he’s been alone for three months, that’s a whole lot of torture.
Another part of the fact that he’s being chased by those that were once on his side is that he feels rather betrayed. Not one of his old friends stood with him - granted, they were all terrified of the dragon but still! He has nobody, not even amongst those that once admired him so highly. This leads to a great lack of trust - Claudius finds it very hard to trust people and so he tries to drive them away; or, even if he does let them in, keeps them at a cautious distance.
He wants people but he doesn’t want to let them in; it’s a terrible paradox.
But, of course, there are more problems than just that.
One of the biggest problems is his issues with gender. Claudius was born a male and, for the sake of energy conservation, mainly stays in male form now - but he spent a good portion of his immortal life (526 years overall) in the body of Claudia, who was quite obviously a female. This leads to yet more confusion - he sometimes feels like a male, sometimes feels like a female. And will sometimes get the gender pronouns mixed up and start referring to himself as female when in a male body.
But, far more harmful than that, sometimes he doesn’t use gender at all - sometimes he falls right back to referring to himself as an ‘it’ instead.
It all refers back to his time with Mihas, as most things do. Feeling as if you’ve been born into the wrong gender is perfectly fine; but Claudius never really felt that - he changed himself purely for Mihas and always felt uncomfortable about the change underneath. Sure, the worship of Mihas was a thing to behold but that only came once every six months and very briefly even then - the rest of the time he had to deal with no attention and being uncomfortable in his body.
So, instead of falling into referring to himself as ‘her” he instead fell into referring to himself as ‘it.’ Something less, something unnatural - he recognises, to an extent, that this feeling isn’t really sensible but he can’t help it. And so he’s left with a odd clash - the superiority complex resulting from being a vampire combined with the inferiority complex of feeling the wrong gender.
It really just makes things far more confusing.
But he’s not just made up by his uncertainty; I mean, he’s mainly made up of his uncertainty but there are a few other things.
He’s intelligent, fiercely intelligent. Back in Wallachia, even before he was a vampire, he was widely recognised as the most intelligent man in the Dragon’s army and a force to be admired. Claudius isn’t one for battles or learning army theory; he’s more one for sitting up with his books, for reading up ‘til dawn and for putting his studies before everything but Mihas.
This intelligence leads neatly into cunning. Claudius is very cunning and manipulative - before he was blinded by Mihas he could usually plan ahead for most things, and now, after Mihas, he’s starting to regain that ability. He has few morals now, few principles and is very good at planning and manipulating people into place. Claudius is basically a born plotter.
This leads to him being rather selfish in some ways - he would’ve died for Mihas, and, if the situation had called for it, would’ve probably died for the Dragon. But apart from them he’s quite self concerned - as are more vampires. He’s interested mainly in his own pleasures, his own safety. And while this is becoming less of a priority he can still show stunning flashes of that old selfishness.
That makes him ruthless too, very ruthless. He had no problems in sacrificing his children to make Mihas love him. And, while he’s slowly starting to feel a little guilt, he still doesn’t feel too regretful over that. He no longer has Mihas to sacrifice packs of teenage vampires too but he’d still probably sacrifice people for his own good, would still probably manipulate people like pawns. Sometimes it’s all just a chessboard to him, and, apart from vampires at last, he’s still learning that it doesn’t have to be like that.
Of course, all of that leads to awkward social situations - for many years (at least 100) Claudius has only been attached to Mihas; and, even before he settled in London, the last good friend he had was the infamous Elizabeth Bathory. As such sometimes he isn’t sure how to act in social situations - and so comes off as aloof or shy. He doesn’t like parties, they remind him of Mihas’ orgies, and doesn’t particularly like exposing himself - all of which can make it quite difficult to form attachments.
He does try though, he needs to try.
And there are some reasons why you’d want to know him - he’s certainly, once you get to know him, very trustworthy. So trustworthy that the Dragon, when he decided to do a Sleeping Beauty, chose Claudius to look after his box. Granted, Claudius failed in the end but he kept it safe for 100 years while being surrounded by idiot teenagers and Mihas, that deserves some credit.
Another thing that he displays, when you get to know him, is that he’s very loyal - to the point where it could be regarded as another fault instead of a positive. He stayed with Mihas for all of his immortality, even when the man actually slept with others right in front of his eyes, and never once uttered a word of complaint or betrayed him - granted he, again, did fail at the end but that was only after five centuries of horrific treatment and almost getting killed by his children. His loyalty, again, deserves quite a bit of credit.
It’s that loyalty that leads nicely into Mihas. In the past three months Claudius has realised that his love for Mihas was simply an obsession that took everything from him and gave nothing in return. Being a smart person he realizes now that such a relationship isn’t acceptable and shouldn’t be sought… But a love spanning over 500 years doesn’t go away that easily. He still loves Mihas in a way, will possibly always love Mihas, and that leads to a heavy sense of self loathing at times.
But onto more cheerful matters! He also has a sense of humour - he uses sarcasm to protect himself from enquiries that go too deep, uses sarcasm to keep him sane. Claudius has never been one for battles and strife - he’s more likely to make your cheeks flare with a barb than to rip your throat out.
But it isn’t just sarcasm that he likes - he can also appreciate a joke. He’s grown to the point where he quite likes quips, quite likes wit. In fact he almost considers it a art form - far better to insult the mind than to assault the body in his opinion. And so he’s learnt the art of laughter, he can still get offended but compared to certain other vampires he’s a lot more likely to smirk.
Other things he likes are these: cats, he does love cats. His vampire form even resembles a cat - he admires their cunning, their indifference and their habit of treating everybody around them like dirt. And, incidentally, they’re the one animal species that won’t either try to kill him or run for the hills.
He also likes movies, Claudius likes to think of himself as a man of culture - thus he often reads classical books (even if he remembers when they were new), listens to classical music and watches artistic movies. He used to have a habit of going to see French cinema with another teacher and, although being on the run from a rather angry vampire rather stops that hobby, he still has a rather high love for film and culture.
One final, serious point though is the way he approaches religion. As stated below Claudius’ weakness is religious objects - they burn him, make him cower back in terror. This was because of the time he was raised in - his family was highly religious and Claudius, unlike some vampires (*cough*Mihas*Cough*), actually took this fairly seriously and, through his mortal life and through the first few years of vampire life, spent a fair amount of time brooding on his sins.
Of course, over the years with Mihas this has faded somewhat - he still carries that residual fear of sin and, by extension, religion but he’s a lot more unsure about it now. Religion is still a subject that makes him very uncomfortable and, if possible, he’ll try to avoid it to the best of his abilities.
..So! That’s basically Claudius - horribly uncertain, terribly confused and often very sarcastic. He’s not a healthy man/vampire at all - but he’s certainly starting to try.
Other Skills/Abilities: -Can speak Romanian, French, Italian, English and bits of German.
-Increased healing.
-Increased speed.
-Can turn into a cat.
-Can turn into a cat beast; a form that basically resembles a rather annoyed panther on two legs.
-Can turn into a woman
-A little stronger than most humans.
-Increased sense of smell.
-Utterly immune to silver.
-Can, if he chooses, charm people to do things for him - but he rarely chooses these days.
-Can drink blood through his skin, quite a useful skill.
-Has no problems with seeing in the dark, actually finds it easier than the light at times.
-Can call animals to his aid, those this really shouldn’t come into play.
Other Weaknesses: -Has a horrible weakness to anything holy: from crosses to holy water.
-All animals hate him; all apart from cats.
-Still horribly weak from when his children attacked him; so is, at the moment, roughly the strength of a fairly fit man.
--This also means that you can still, if you look closely enough, see the tendons in his neck.
---And his legs.
-He also can’t run that fast because of his injuries, his legs would prevent him.
-Will immediately crumble into dust even if exposed to a match. Being a vampire can suck at times.
-Fairly weak in sunlight; most of his powers fade and he gets the irresistible urge to sleep,
-He can shapeshift but if he holds a form that isn’t Claudius for too long then he slowly starts to wither.
-Has the usual hunger that vampires experience, is still very addicted to blood.
-Absolutely useless when it comes to military matters; can barely hold a sword right despite being in the army.
-Constantly tired from feeling vampires; this makes him quite vulnerable.
History: (A lot of this was covered in the psychology section, so some bits may be repeated)
Once upon a time, around 1446, a male child called Claudius was born on the borders of Wallachia.
He had a normal enough upbringing for that time he supposes; his father and mother didn’t love each other but respected each other anyway, he followed a heir and was followed by a little sister and he had a fair few friends in the surrounding villages. Considering the time he was raised fairly religiously and took his religion fairly seriously; and also would’ve been taught a few basics by his father - languages (fairly good), military theory (fairly bad), writing (very good), a little hand to hand fighting (very bad), reading (excellent) and fighting with a sword (abysmal.)
In fact the only thing that wasn’t normal about his upbringing was that he was raised with a respect of women - His mother was quite obviously more intelligent than his father, and his little sister was quite obviously more intelligent than his big brother. As a result Claudius spent a lot more time with the female side of his family and learned to respect them - forming an impression of them as equals instead of wenches only fit to bear children. It’s an impression that’s still with him.
Anyway, this pattern of normality continued until he was twenty or so - then, being the younger son, he was finally called up for military service. Finally ordered to leave the only home that he’d ever known - not knowing that it was the last time that he’d see it or his family Claudius quite happily complied, and rode off into a bright, hopeful sunset…
It happened within an hour of entering the camp, practically a few seconds after the faintly terrified Claudius had bowed before the Dragon. He’d wandered off from his guides and was vaguely considering where the most books would be… And then he bumped into Mihas.
Mihas was, no denying it, attractive enough to make Claudius’ heart flutter on first sight. But he wasn’t just that: he was charming, smiling, flirting… And, although Claudius didn’t discover it ‘til far later, he was also the camp bicycle and practiced at seducing innocents.
Claudius was something new, something fairly attractive… And so, within a few hours, he found himself in Mihas’ bed. Vaguely puzzled, vaguely terrified but a whole lot of fun at the time.
But it didn’t stop there - perhaps it would’ve been better if it had. Pretty much everybody in the camp had experienced a fling with Mihas, even Costin who practically strode around bellowing ‘I AM SEER, WORSHIP ME!’ and glaring was rumoured to have had something. But, for the most part, nobody carried it beyond one time - all of them were too aware that Mihas could never commit, could never restrain himself from chasing after the next pretty thing that came along; and most considered a butterfly-minded sex addict not worth execution if it came out.
All except Claudius that was.
In the next few months he pined after Mihas near constantly… But at the same time he was proving himself. It became pretty obvious fairly soon that he was, possibly, the very worst swordsman in the camp but he certainly had other skills - it was because of his plans that most of the Dragon’s victories were won, and that not only led to general appreciation but Mihas’ appreciation.
Soon they were sleeping together on a regular basis; and soon Claudius was learning just how having your heart ripped out on a regular basis felt. At some point Claudius had gone beyond being puzzled and fearing sin and instead had gone into loving Mihas with all of his heart.
But Mihas would never love him in the same way.
This continued for eight years uninterrupted; Claudius, eventually, took a fairly understanding wife who brought the dowry of a cat and Mihas had several wives, some of them even his own - but even with matrimony Claudius didn’t stop obsessing over Mihas, and Mihas didn’t stop manipulating Claudius into his bed. It was all deeply unhealthy - but Claudius was determined to be cheerful about it; he had friends, he had an understanding wife, he had a much loved cat…
And then, in his twenty eighth year, his wife died… Which was quite a bummer really considering that she was basically his best friend - but, unfortunately for his wife, that wasn’t the main thing that happened that year; there were far worse things to come.
The Dragon, you see, had been having a long running feud with the Ottomans - and was, by 1474, getting rather annoyed at their continued attempts to crush his country. So, when the Devil visited him on one very dark night (the Devil likes drama) the Dragon, despite his religious leanings, leapt at the chance to become immortal and all-powerful; to destroy his enemies at last.
Of course, he needed an army - and so the existing one was dragged into immortality too; which, of course, included Claudius.
At first Claudius, who was still very religious, was terrified at the thought of becoming immortal, of drinking blood… He considered it a sin, thought that it’d make him unnatural in the eyes of the lord.
But then he saw Mihas, drinking blood like the finest wine… And, as always, he decided that he’d do anything to keep Mihas’ eyes on him.
So Claudius became a vampire, and didn’t feel that overjoyed about it.
Mihas, as seen above, immediately ran off to frolic in his new form - but Claudius, still stunned from the change, stayed behind - and researched. He discovered most of his abilities in that long night, and immediately showed them off to Mihas when he returned - who was, of course, quite impressed by Claudius’ ability to turn into a woman… But not impressed enough.
It didn’t matter that much for the first two years - Claudius didn’t have much opportunity to take on female form anyway. They stayed with the army for that time after all; and while Mihas accepted the change in private Claudius wasn’t stupid - a simple loss of life wouldn’t erase prejudices so deeply ingrained.
But then that all changed - the Dragon, so enamoured of immortal life that he forget why he’d taken it, faked his own death and ordered his ‘children’ to spread out into the world and have fun. Eventually they would rise up and rip apart their allies - but until then there was an entire world out there to experience.
Mihas didn’t need to hear it again, he immediately set off for the big wide world - and Claudius, ever loyal, trailed after him.
For those first 100 years they mainly stayed around the Wallachia area - driven, in part, by Mihas’ ridiculous desire to sleep with every single member of a family. Claudius was hurt by this, had no option but to be hurt by this, but still stayed by Mihas’ side - still obediently cleared up the messes that his obsession left behind. They met many people in those days, many faces - and Claudius changed accordingly; one day Mihas’ obedient travelling companion, the next his loving mistress.
It was while he was wearing the form of the mistress that they were invited to the castle of Elizabeth Báthory; it was inevitable really - somebody so addicted to blood could hardly resist the sight of actual vampires.
By that point Claudius had started to notice something, something almost small - when he stayed as Claudius, as he did half the time, he still looked twenty eight, just as Mihas still looked thirty and the Dragon still probably looked in his forties. But when he was Claudia… Well, there’d be a wrinkle there, a grey hair on her head - a line that had no right to appear on a woman who should be stuck in her late twenties.
To be Claudia meant that he had to age; and that terrified him.
By the time they came to Elizabeth Báthory’s castle he’d already been taking blood baths for about five years, and didn’t know quite how to feel about that… Well, it was hardly like the bloody countess would help settle his feelings on the matter. He accidently introduced her to the concept of a blood bath, and in return she strengthened his resolve on continuing with them.
She also gave him directions to a woman who made love potions - and Claudius, despite his former aversion to anything ‘pagan,’ immediately followed them; immediately found her and purchased her entire stock… It didn’t work, but still he kept trying.
And soon they left the countess and started wandering again; Mihas declaring that he was bored with the area around Wallachia and immediately wandering off to pastures new - Claudius, who would’ve been perfectly happy with staying in his home country, only gave a big sigh and followed yet again.
They spent most of the next 300 years or so gallivanting around France and Germany… Well, Mihas did. Claudius simply kept cleaning up the messes that always resulted and noting, with a heavy sense of dismay, that Claudia was now starting to resemble a woman in her late forties. It was a miserable time for him; but Mihas was happy and so it was all fine.
But things were about to get a lot worse.
For most of the 1800s, ever since the French revolution and death to the aristocracy, Claudius had just managed to keep Mihas wandering around Germany and, occasionally, Italy - but then one night, just as Claudius had watched Mihas go off with another maiden, a call came.
A call from the Dragon.
Claudius, taking a sort of glee from the act, immediately ripped Mihas from his innocent maid and hurried back to Wallachia at top speed - barely stopping for blood along the way. He just managed to take back on the form of Claudius before he arrived but it was a close run thing - he was so excited after all; perhaps the Dragon had heard of his troubles with Mihas and was calling them to give a strict lecture about monogamy!
But no, even as a human the Dragon was never that kind - and the happiness of his ‘children’ mattered little to him.
Instead he repeated what he’d told all of his remaining children: that he was tired of mortal life, that he wanted one day to rise up and rip apart the human scum that covered the earth… But it had to be a surprise; and so he would sleep for over a hundred years - leaving his ‘children’ to build armies and manipulate the earth from the shadows.
He told all of his ‘children’ that… But to Claudius he added a second request. He’d always been the smartest of the Dragon’s soldiers, and the Dragon still considered him so - a passionate, firey soldier would only lead to him being ripped apart by hunters before he had the chance to rise. And so Claudius seemed the perfect option - smart, cunning and very loyal.
Claudius, immediately seeing a chance to tie Mihas down, accepted happily - and stayed with the Dragon and his custodes, specially bred guards, in Wallachia; perfectly ready to wait out the next century or so with Mihas.
But Mihas had entirely different ideas: he was still a child at heart and had no intention to stop his wandering yet, even for the dragon. He told the dismayed Claudius as much and immediately departed - leaving Claudius abandoned, alone and unable to follow.
For fifty miserable years it pretty much stayed like this - Claudius staying constantly as Claudia and awaiting Mihas’ rare visits eagerly; well aware that he was far away and probably entertaining maidens at every possible moment. And even when he did visit he mocked her more than he adored her - called her too old, too withered, too jealous.
By the end it got to the point where Claudia considered starving herself of blood to end the pain; at least she wouldn’t be apart from him anymore, at least he wouldn’t mock her… But then, in the early 1930s, another message came, this one from Mihas. He’d found a place to settle! A place where he wouldn’t mind staying forever.
No matter that it was in England, no matter that it’d take several months of hard travel and moving the custodes… No matter; she’d be with Mihas again!
And so she travelled, and so she settled with Mihas again - and the reunion was joyous and passionate… But yet again there were troubles; there would always be troubles for Claudia.
First she had to deal with a certain Thomas Gatenby - who Mihas was quite obviously sleeping with while stealing his money at the same time, then there was also the Dragon’s unfortunate order to create a bigger army by the time he rose again and, finally, there was the fact that Claudia had started to starve herself of blood by the time Mihas’ message again.
She recovered from the starvation, what with the varied blood found as she travelled to Mihas, but her body was less inclined to bounce back - yet again she considered herself ugly and old, her form now looked to be a woman in her late sixties, and yet again Mihas was wondering. She worried that soon he would obey the order for children, make Thomas Gatenby into a vampire and leave her for good…
Luckily Claudia, despite all her hardships, was still cunning - and so she found a way to fix all three problems at once.
First of all she persuaded Mihas that Thomas Gatenby was really vampire material; with her cunning, and some help from the custodes, she managed to convince Mihas that the poor boy would faint at the sight of blood, that it’d really be far easier to just let him die instead of welcoming him into immortality. Luckily her persuasion worked - Mihas ensured Gatenby’s death and Gatenby leaving them all his money.
With this money Claudia started work; while Mihas partied all night she worked to recruit discreet builders to make the, already existing but abandoned, underground habitable again. It was already carved so that it only took a matter of years - and, following that, she turned her eyes to finally recruiting ‘children’ to the Dragon’s cause.
Unfortunately for her Mihas already had his eyes on some children.
Mihas had always been prone to seducing the young, even as a human, and as a vampire this urge only strengthened - his favorite pastime in London, alongside Gatenby, had been stalking around a local boarding school for the young, female and rich, Queenshill, and seducing the girls. He immediately made his desires clear to Claudia - if he had to have children cramping his style he wanted pretty young maidens
Claudia, at the start, was horrified - she, old and ugly, was supposed to watch while he seduced the pretty and the young? It seemed too cruel even for him!
But soon, as she always did, she started to justify it - and started to see the positives. Bleeding a person out had always given her skin a glow, the blood of the young even more so - and as for the blood of a young vampire…
She experimented at first, turned a young explorer without Mihas’ knowledge and cut her throat, ate her organs, drunk the girl’s blood through her skin… And it worked! When Claudia looked at herself in the mirror she found herself a beauty of twenty eight again, wonderfully fresh, wonderfully seductive.
That night she finally seduced Mihas back to her bed again, and that night she decided - she would allow him his ‘daughters’ if he would allow her their lives. They would make her pretty again, make Mihas look at her again…
So, every two years Claudia hand picked seven girls - rich, posh, European… But abandoned, dependant; ones whose parents would not question their daughter’s nighttime practices, or who wouldn’t question if their daughters… Disappeared. From every seven Claudia always killed four, and she felt no guilt for it’d make Mihas look at her again and not see just a ragged, old crone; that made everything worth it.
And so another pattern started - for eighty years or so Mihas’ affections would wane and Claudia would go to increasingly ridiculous lengths to get him back. About 160 vampire girls died, their throats ripped out to feed Claudia’s beauty… And yet life went on; the survivors moved on to the underground unknowing their classmates true fates and every two years there was a new, innocent crop of beauty products to choose from. Things weren’t alright at all; but Claudia could play pretend and that had to be good enough.
And then three very bad things happened in very quick succession.
The first very bad thing was that the newest class started, after she’d eaten the one with terribly black hair (Claudia didn’t really bother to learn their names; they’d soon be eaten or gone after all), to suspect that something was wrong with the picture; the brainless one and the mouthy one had both, mysteriously, been rather popular and had both left rather suddenly - and now a third one? Of course they knew something was up.
But this alone wasn’t all that worrying to Claudia, she’d been doing it for eighty odd years after all - the girls always got a little shifty after three of their ever close classmates had left; but, at the same time, the girls always got distracted by the promise of the underground and Mihas - her secret was perfectly safe, and she was perfectly beautiful.
Then, around the same time as the suspicions started, Dawn and her gang of hunters rolled into town - discovering a unfortunate burial ground and killing one of the current custodes while they were at it. And then they had the cheek to attack Queenshill and send the girls running to her for shelter!
Really, such rude hunters - ones that made running away necessary - and, as if enough things hadn’t gone wrong already, the leader of the girls had a rebellious moment and decided to run off without a glance back - luckily Della (the only one of the girls who Claudia had bothered to learn) caught her and killed her with ravens before she could get too far; but it was still annoying and resulted in another loss.
….Not that annoying though; the leader had been an utter cow after all. It was a bit annoying that Claudia now had to make plans to eat Della, her favorite (though that wasn’t saying a lot with Claudia), instead but it would’ve been alright in the end. In fact the hunters would’ve almost been more positive - she could’ve, along the line, manipulated the girls into believing that the hunters had killed Della and thus created greater underground unity. Everything would’ve been perfect!
But there was still one very bad thing to come.
For eighty years, ever since they’d all arrived in London, the custodes had faded to the background - more a shadow, a whisper amongst the ‘children’ that they’d created together. They were all male, all strong… And over time all lazy, all complacent. After a hundred years of sleep, and no hunters showing up, they almost started to believe that they were completely safe from anything - and so, instead of guarding the Dragon as they should’ve done, they turned more to helping the underground instead; to helping Claudia win back Mihas over and over again.
But then the hunters arrived in town, and accidently killed a custode that was investigating them. He was the last male of the line besides his already activated brother, and since there must always be two… His sister was activated in his place.
Lilly was new, rebellious, young - and Claudia actually liked her at first; she seemed a more passionate sort than those who’d gone before, a sort who didn’t let repressed scorn lurk in her eyes when she talked. It was new, refreshing - and Claudia looked forward to things going on as they always had, except with more sympathetic custodes.
Unfortunately Lilly had different ideas.
She thought she was acting for the good of the underground; in fact, in the end, she’d almost convinced herself that she was actually acting for the good of Claudia - Lilly wanted the old vampire out; wanted a new age of soldiers to come in. And, unknowing that it was actually Claudia in charge of the Dragon, she was determined to do anything to achieve that.
Without Claudia’s permission, or knowledge, she took the vampire’s memories and inserted them into Della’s head - giving her visions of Claudia’s past, of what she’d done. Della saw all the times that Claudia had been rejected, all the ties that she’d been left behind…
And Della, who was quite smart herself, figured out exactly what’d been happening to her classmates.
Understandably a bit annoyed by this developed she summoned her siblings and, after convincing them of Claudia’s guilt, they all attacked their ‘mother’ together - half killing her with the passion of their attack. Claudia, weak from pining and lack of practice, had no choice but to flee - throat and legs almost ripped open as she fled into the night.
Somehow she just about managed to heal herself, at least to the point where she wasn’t about to accidently rip her legs off, and immediately went in search of a victim for a blood bath - she had to look beautiful again, had to seduce Mihas again so he’d destroy the defects that’d hurt her so.
But, as covered above, she had several realizations as she dragged her victim to a abandoned apartment… And that was when she turned back into a him; finally taking his true form again after 100 years as Claudia.
He didn’t have long to revel in that though - soon Dawn and her hunters arrived and immediately h was captured. He fought, of course… But it was a rather uneven fight when he was injured, they had resistance to his charm and one of them had bloody mind powers that could throw him against walls!
Really, very rude people.
With him subdued that took him back to their lair, ripped away his self confidence a bit more while interrogating him… And then their boss set off to catch Mihas and he was left all alone with them; all alone to discover that Dawn really was a kindred spirit.
He couldn’t revel in that either - soon enough his ‘daughters’ came looking to finish the job they started and they were forced to flee yet again; this time ending up in a set of rooms deep underground; here they interrogated him a bit more - but he wouldn’t give, he wouldn’t give….
Until he did, and even today he’s still not so sure if he meant to or not.
He gave Dawn information about the custodes family home, a lovely gothic mansion with the usual incest and insanity contained within, and watched her return with the papers from there with a due sense of shock - so much shock that he, accidently again, gave her the location of the underground, the place where she could find her mysteriously vanished boss and the Dragon.
And that should’ve been the end of him, should’ve been the cue to chop off his head and let him crumble into dust…
But at the same time as he’d been learning to respect Dawn she’d somehow been learning to respect him. Instead of killing him she released him and told him to flee to a happy place, a place where he could crumble into dust with a smile on his face and, quite possibly, a song in his heart.
Claudius didn’t need telling twice.
Using what remained of his speed, which wasn’t much by that point, he escaped from underground and shot off towards the sea; not really knowing where he was going, only really knowing that he wanted to be somewhere peaceful for his inevitable, long awaited death…
And then he felt Mihas die, which was expected but still rather a stomach punch that forced him to halt… But, soon after that he felt the Dragon flare back into life in his head, a loud bellow echoing out to any vampires that remained - the return of his old master could only mean one thing: that Dawn had died.
Which meant that he was all alone, without a friend in the world.
And things were about to get a hell of a lot worse.
The Dragon, after getting done with roasting interlopers and yelling at useless custodes, happened to actually talk to the soldiers that remained on the scene - and Della, who’d survived by the skin of her teeth, happened to be amongst them. Being a good soldier, who’d had three of her best friends eaten, she promptly told the Dragon that it was probably Claudius that’d given the information leading to his hiding place.
The Dragon happened to be a little bit annoyed by that: but hey, at least he had the courtesy to contact Claudius and inform him about his immanent doom.
Claudius, upon receiving this rather terse message, found his survival instinct immediately kicking in and fled to France at top speed, barely stopping for breath before he continued on from the port - constantly moving, constantly terrified that the Dragon will catch up with him and rip him apart… And that’s how it’s been for the past three months; never stopping, never even pausing for breath.
It’s quite a miserable life really… Until he stumbles into a rather mysterious shop and encounters a plane of stars.
Yep, then it just gets weird.
Canon Point: AU, 3 months or so after the end of “Deep In The Woods” - AKA about February 2010.
Reality Description: Basically the same as Sorin’s reality - except based around Europe instead; specifically upper Italy at the moment because he doesn’t want to be predictable.
To put it simply it’s basically modern day - people carrying around I-phones, people watching the Simpsons, people driving cars… On the surface it all seems perfectly normal, perfectly ordinary in fact.
But underneath there be vampires.
Basically vampires abilities vary from line to line - Claudius comes from a different line to Sorin, and was turned by the Dragon, and so his abilities are different from Sorin’s. Claudius’ line can now, since Mihas died, turn into cat creatures resembling panthers on two legs, they can also call animals to their aid and drink blood through their skin, just like Claudius.
They also have a higher resistance to light than Sorin’s line - Claudius can, if he wishes, stay out in the sunshine all day with few side effects. But this is very hard for him to do - as stated in the weaknesses section he gets very lethargic in sunlight and wants to sleep all the time. This is a skill that transfers to his children.
Other things that differentiate his line from the others are slightly more elegance than the Hollywood line, an increased longing for blood (a hangover from Mihas) and being repelled by holy objects instead of silver. Otherwise they’re similar to Sorin’s vampires: their abilities dilute along the line, they can be turned human again if their parent is killed (though if they have two parents as in the case of Claudius’ offspring they’ll just get weaker if one is killed) and fire has a very high chance of harming them.
There are other creatures though: but only one really applies to Claudius. While the Dragon mad ea deal with the Devil he was really reaching a bit high - in Claudius’ world it’s more common, if you do choose to deal with pure evil, to get a lesser demon to take your soul. One of the more prominent demons about at the moment is a guy who happily sucks emotions out of people and leaves them to die as husks. And, considering that Claudius is a fleeing vampire who happens to feel rather lost, he’s very likely to notice the poor boy at some point.
Now, onto the NPCs!
There are two main NPCs in Claudius’ reality, now that Mihas and Dawn are dead: and the first one just has to be Della. Della is Claudius’ ‘child’ and a fairly young vampire: being still the age that she was turned at.
However, while she’s very young she’s also got a very big grudge against her ‘mother’ Quite reasonably she blames him for the deaths of three of her friends. And so, feeling the urge for revenge and also having some residual awareness (sort of a psychic link between parent and child vampires) leftover, she’s been placed in charge of finding him. She hasn’t quite caught up yet but she’s got close a few times. And, considering that she’s only a little weaker than him now, their eventual confrontation is bound to be fun.
The second important NPC that Claudius has is his maker, the Dragon. Once an important warlord in Wallachia he did a deal with the Devil for eternal life and took his army along for the ride. He’s mean, bloodthirsty and very likely to rip apart anybody that stands against him; which is precisely what happened to Dawn and the gang.
Oh, and he can actually turn into a dragon - the subtlety is amazing there.
So, basically Claudius’ reality is a fairly ordinary modern day setting… Except he’s being chased by several very angry vampires and a guy who can turn into a dragon, and has the risk of being stalked by an emotion eating demon.
Life is very fun!