Possibility [Loic]

[Selene Shardae]

 Selene had been enjoying a quiet morning to herself, which wasn't to say that she never got them in general, but rather this time Loic had actually told her to go relax by the pool. At least he knew when she'd been straining herself to keep up with his actions, but then again, that was kind of what one expected to deal with when one chose to involve themselves with a Diamond, much less Loic in particular. She leaned back in the reclining chair, eyes closed as she soaked up the sun's rays. There was a cold Pina Colada with an umbrella on the short table next to her, half-drank and melting.

She heard a terrific crashing sound come from inside the house, and was up like a shot, towel sliding off of the chair in a heap. She strained with her ears as she looked around the house for the source of the noise, black bikini-clad figure alternating between creeping and rushing around corners while she tried to make her way to where she thought was the source of the noise. She came into the bedroom where she was fairly certain the sound had originated, only to find Loic on the ground clutching his head, the curtain rod holding the gauzy fabric that gave their bedroom the 'Grecian' look on top of him. That must've been what the sound was.

"Loic?" she said, her voice clearly confused. She approached him with caution, kneeling down to push the curtain rod to the side. "What did you do, yank it down on top of you trying to open it?" That looked to have been exactly what had happened, but why would he have yanked it down unless he'd fallen? She frowned, looking him over for any injuries, and finding none. She felt a strange rushing sensation in her blood, giving her a cold chill that left her with an empty feeling she couldn't explain.

"What the hell was that?" she asked, face betraying her shock.

[Loïc Navarre]

There were definitely worse jobs to have than being Loic's most trusted, especially since he didn't exactly work Selene to the bone, but it was true that she didn't get the specific instructions to go relax by the pool or do whatever else she wanted.  Even if he didn't explicitly give her tasks to do, there were certain things that seemed to be expected, and Selene didn't slack.  Essentially, she behaved like the vampire's wife, without the ring or the title.  It worked, for the time being, and perhaps nothing would have changed if life had continued this way.

The problem was that it didn't.  Loic had a hawk at all times, whether he was still raising and training her or she was a thing of excellence, there was always one and had been for many generations.  The Shardae had a habit of writing that daughter out of their histories, which had the additional effect of leaving their descendents completely unprepared for him when he came looking for a new one.  It wasn't as though there was anything they could do to stop him, but they didn't seem to know that he'd done it so many times before.  Selene, as fond of her as he was and as useful as he found her to be, was not the first and wasn't likely to be the last of his hawks, though he could admit that she was certainly among the best he'd ever had.  It might have been her generation, but he felt like she offered more companionship than most, if not all, of her ancestors had.  He didn't tell her this.

Of course, he'd never fallen around her, either.  Actually, he could count the number of times he'd felt dizziness in his entire long life on one hand, and most of those situations had been when he was mortal.  Warlords didn't get to their station without some serious battles under their belt, and though Loic had been lucky not to lose any limbs or take any extreme injuries, he still went down two or three times.  In his immortal life, he'd been in even more intense battles, which explained the few times he'd been so badly injured, but this situation was nothing like those.  He'd never gotten dizzy and lost his feet for no apparent reason before.

That appeared to be exactly what was going on here.  He'd been on a call with Noelani, headed out to the balcony, when the dizziness struck from out of nowhere.  There was no warning, no sense of illness or anything other than his hand tightening around the curtain that he'd been opening and the ground rushing up to meet him mid-sentence.  The curtain rod failed to stop his fall and instead came down on top of him, adding insult to injury and leaving him a little stunned as the whole world seemed to dim down and quiet around him and the pain from the curtain rod striking his head flared up like something much worse had hit him.  He hissed from it, putting a hand to the wound expecting it to be worse, and looked up to see Selene as she questioned him about what happened.

He gave her a look that clearly said that he was unhappy with her asking him if he'd pulled the curtain down on top of himself trying to open it (which was basically what had happened, but he wasn't some fool who would just pull it down; he knew his own strength), but he didn't have the ability to answer her quiet yet.  For some reason that he couldn't fathom anymore than he could understand how and why he'd fallen like he had, this wave of nausea had overcome him and he found himself gasping rather suddenly.  Naturally, speaking required air, so he wasn't unaccustomed to breathing, but he hadn't tried to speak.  He shouldn't have had to breathe if he wasn't talking.

Loic didn't dissolve into the coughing fit that some of the vampires may have, but a small amount of panic struck him as he gulped down air like a drowning victim who'd finally made it to the surface, and he turned his eyes up to Selene once more.  This time, he didn't look unhappy so much as bewildered. 

"I don't know," he admitted, but just focusing on her brought another painful fact into focus: he didn't know what she was thinking, and he couldn't feel her.  He should have been able to express his will to her without even looking her way, and he couldn't even read her emotions.  FUCK.

[Selene Shardae]

 Selene held her hand up before he had a chance to get up, her keen ears picking up something that she had never heard before. "What is that?" she asked, eyes squinting a little as her head turned left and right. She finally looked back at him, a slow and deliberate gesture, before she leaned forward. She hesitated for a second, and then continued to lean in, pressing her ear to his chest. Then, she jerked back like she'd been slapped.

"Your heart beats," she said. It was almost in an accusatory tone, and with the wideness of her eyes and the openness of her mouth when she said it, perhaps she meant it that way. Selene had never thought highly of humans, and she had no reason to. Loic raised her in privilege, and as she believed it, most humans were worthless creatures worth not even the air they consumed. Loic, of course, would have been an exception to that every bit as much as Noelani was, but still, it was shocking.

"Here," she said. She took his hand and pulled him up. She swiped her phone before he could, hitting 'send' so that it would just dial Noelani back, and immediately started in on what the hell was happening. She was surprised to learn that all of the vampires had done it, and not just in the city - it was global. She attempted to fix the curtain as she spoke on the phone, successfully doing so (thankfully, she would have been pissed if she'd have to have bought a new one).

"Well, you'll be happy to know that it isn't just you, it's everyone," she informed him, circling the room like a - well, like a hawk. She walked into the massive closet that their bedroom held, changing out of her bathing suit so that she could put on more normal clothing. She had a feeling that her pool day was over. She walked back out a few moments later in a pair of jeans and a soft, fitted grey t-shirt. With the precision of someone who had done it many times over, she wound her long, blonde hair back and secured it with a silver barrette that she'd snatched from the top of the dresser.

Sitting down on the bed, she looked up at him with her eyes, pressing her lips together. "What do you want me to do?" she asked. Even without his power, Selene was still his... wife was a fairly appropriate word. If they were a political couple, that is. There was certainly no deep, devoted love between them, which meant nothing had truly been lost. Selene was still dedicated to cleaning his messes up; though now she was wondering if this had been reversed, would he do the same or cast her out? It was perhaps better he could not read her mind.