Day 6: Blood of My Blood
This was the first real chapter that I felt I started getting a handle on who Cassandra and Alistair were as Kindred, as children of Malkav. This was when I started to really see what I could do with her as the powers and plot developed with her as a seer.
And Ithan, oh Ithan you sweet sweet boy. He had no idea what he’s in for.
Now as I’m sure it’s been mentioned before and if not allow me to share that I’m a sucker for romance in my books and games. Romantasy, cozy rom com vibes even if the formulas tend to be a bit predictable. I love a good happy ending for a couple as long as it’s earned and the connection feels believable between the romantic leads. So of course I wanted to give myself-Cassandra a cute nerdy guy.
You know, as a treat.
I will fully admit when I was introducing him I did not know if he was human, a ghoul or someone who would be ghouled later in order to bring him into her story proper, or to give it a Twilight-esque twist-a werewolf. I wanted to discover who he was in time as much as I had been slowly discovering her.But he had so much potential to add into a story like this.
A while back when we did a Vampire the Masquerade one shot, I played a Toreador who had been a dice goblin (she was obsessed with the art of story creating, cosplay and art). She had gotten invited to an exclusive table to play Curse of Strahd where the DM got very into character. At the table, she and one of the other players (who didn’t get turned like she did but got ghouled) started having feelings for one another. Becoming a vampire kind of complicated that, especially when he was placed to help her out on the day to day by her sire. He became her ride or die, covering up her accidental kills. He became morally grey.
Why am I telling you this? Because I could have made this Ithan’s path. It very well might have but Cassandra was very different from my Toreador. So while I didn’t know his path, it wasn’t going to be the one that the Toreador’s companion followed.
Probably not anyway.
Bryan and I differ in our styles of writing and how we approach writing. Once upon a time I fancied myself a planner over being a pantser, but as I’ve continued to write all different sorts of stories is that I can plan all I want but the way the characters react when I place them in situations can take those plans and make confetti. Or burn them. So while I liked the idea of them ending up together-which to be fair was always a possibility and still is as we begin to approach the time in which book two will be written, I did not have control over how they would be with one another.
And that’s okay, because it makes sitting down to write every day exciting because I never know who the characters are going to meet, who they vibe with, who they despise.
I’m along for the ride to discover who they are as much as you are dear reader.