Dicentra

The Name.

Named for the Valentine Bleeding Heart flower's scientific name, Dicentra Spectabilis (also called Lamprocapnos.) Besides taking this plant as his symbol, he also is fond of purple lovegrass: another plant with "spectabilis" in its scientific name.

He also goes by "Dicen," "Specter," "Lampro," and "Lamprocapnos."

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The Appearance.

As a dragon, Dicen is jet black with red-and-black wings and a cool-toned white underbelly that reaches about halfway up his neck. (Capsule is used for this affect. He does not canonically have a glass belly with strange, white liquid sloshing around in there for everyone to see.) He also has two particularly sharp teeth (fangs.)

As a human, he has two particularly sharp teeth (fangs), jet black, neatly-kept hair, and pressed, perfectly-in-place attire. His skin is extremely pale as well. He stands with impeccable posture, and is often wearing a gentle smile, though if one looks into his red eyes, one will not see genuine emotion. He's lithe and not very muscular, of average height, and appears to be either in his late teens or early twenties. The latter is assumed, and his actual physical age.

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The Reputation.

A hard-working young man who works as a butler. He takes on any task asked of him with a gentle smile and soft-spoken consent. "Of course, sir." "Right away, ma'am." He's never been known to complain about anything, and has such a soft presence that it's easy to forget that he's even there. Despite his early adulthood, he has all the care and composure of a seasoned servant. None who has ever worked with him had anything bad to say about him. He does not even enter a privately-owned property without express permission from the owner, and works tirelessly to keep everything put under his care in pristine condition, such as covering furniture and mirrors when not in use. No one is perfect, however. He has a bad streak of misfortune which follows him to every estate he finds work at.

That is, his employer always finds him- or herself dead. It's no fault of Dicen's though, of course! Sometimes it's soon after he's hired, sometimes it's after he'd been caring for a master for years. He's such a good butler, though, all his fellow staff always agree that he could not have possibly been the one to end their master's life. There were even times when Dicen was away on holiday during the time of death, or busy elsewhere in the estate, even with alibis swearing that he was working with them at the time.

So, it could not have been him. Not any of those times.

And yes, he's barely into adulthood, so how could he possibly have had that many masters? It certainly is a curiosity, isn't it? Well, it's easy to see that he's young. Best not think about it too much, yes?

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The Truth.

Dicentra Spectabilis is a vampire. He's been undead for a long time, now. His first job as a servant was forced onto him by the lady in charge of the land he lived in. If the crops didn't come in well enough for the village to pay their taxes, the lady would take some of the people she ruled over into her service as compensation. One harvest, Dicentra was one of those she chose. There was no keeping in contact with those one had left behind, either. Each servant's new life was entirely devoted to the lady and serving her.

It was a dangerous occupation. Fellow servants would be working alongside you one day and then would be gone the next, with no explanation. Those who served the lady well and without complaint continued to serve her. Those who caused trouble disappeared. Dicentra adapted quickly. He never complained. He met every order with a gentle smile and soft obligation. Inside, however, he held suspicion, and cold contempt for the lady. For now, however, he simply obeyed.

One day, he was called into the lady's chamber. Respectful and deceitfully amicable as ever, Dicen asked if there was anything she needed. She began coyly questioning him. Things about how he enjoyed working for her, if he was getting along well with the other servants, and other such meaningless questions. Of course, he told her what she wanted to hear with each answer. The questions shifted to his thoughts on various things. He could tell early on that she was testing his loyalty to her. He lied convincingly about how loyal he was. Finally, she seemed to be satisfied. She invited him to sit next to her. Though inside, he was reluctant, outwardly, he complied immediately. Hesitating may have lost him her trust, and her trust was the only way to survive this place. He did not show any of his unease, even as she leaned against his shoulder and began stroking his hair away from the side she sat on. He didn't even allow his muscles to tense.

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course, my lady."

"Then look over there, at the flowers in that vase."

Though he was uneasy about why she was having him look away from her like that, Dicentra kept perfect posture as he turned his head to look at the vase with dying, yellow flowers inside.

"Would you do anything for me?"

He began to turn his head as he answered, but seeing this, the lady added, "Keep looking at the flowers."

He did so. "I live to serve you, my lady."

"Then do not be alarmed."

That was the moment when Dicentra's life changed forever. He felt something puncture the side of his neck. Rapidly, he began to get light-headed. Deep within him, his panic spiked. He wanted to slap whatever was on his neck off of it, to turn his head to look at whatever it was, to escape this fearsome thing that was robbing him of his blood...but for whatever reason, his body was relaxed. Calm. He did not budge. He did not even try to turn his head. Perhaps it was all that time pretending. Perhaps it was all that time having trained his body to react the way it was expected to, and not out of impulse. Perhaps there was some other force at work. But for whatever the reason, as dizziness and darkness began to overtake Dicentra, and as emotion faded from his heart, he had a profound moment of clarity:
the lady was a vampire...and he was being consumed by her.

When Dicentra next awoke, he was in his own room. One may have expected him to reflect on previous events and assume it was a dream. He knew much better than that, however. His heart was empty. He could no longer feel with it. His senses were heightened, as was his intuition. He had a strange sense of knowing. He knew of his new abilities and limitations: the inability to cross into someone's property without permission, the ability of suggestion and hypnosis, the ability to turn into a webwing at will, the loss of his reflection, his new status of being undead, his need to feed on blood to survive(if it could be called surviving), his semi-immortality, the few things that could kill him now that he was... Yes, indeed. Now, he was a vampire. The lady had taken his mortality away. He was now bound by the same curse as she. It was a simple fact...he supposed that he should have been angry about it, but he felt nothing. His heart no longer beat.

However, he still had his obligations. His routine as a butler continued as ever. If a servant who had known about his being called to the lady's chamber asked about it, he would answer that she had had a task that needed doing and that there was nothing more to it. The lady would not have tolerated a panic among the others, he knew. All the same, he, himself, questioned why he had been selected for this. He suspected, you see, that there was more to this transformation than a simple whim. For some reason, he was certain that she had not transformed any of the others. And so, he set about working a plan very carefully. As he had lived in the lady's estate, Dicentra had learned precision. He could keep a space devoid of dust, fold paper perfectly in the first go, mend clothing as though it had never been torn... This skill he used in order to go through the lady's mail without anything seeming amiss, learning about estate affairs. This is how he learned about the outside world for the first time in years. He felt nothing about it, however. He could not even miss feeling emotion.

Dicen had been at this for only a day when he found what he was looking for. There was news of vampire slayers in the region, on reports of vampiric activity. They were investigating. In an instant, he knew of the lady's plan. She would feign distress, and turn him over to them, absolving the mystery of the vampire. He would be slain in her place, and she would continue managing her food supply of those she ruled over. But she had not guessed how suspicious he had been of her. She had trusted one who would be her undoing.

It was a risky maneuver, but Dicentra contacted the vampire slayers first. When they came to her estate, she began to put on her act. However, before she could accuse Dicen of being a vampire, the slayers were already moving to reveal her true form. Sure enough, she was shown to be a vampire. Dicen acted surprised, aghast, terrified -- just as all the other servants displayed. He fled the battle between the lady and the slayers...and then, at the end of it, the lady was no more. The servants were reunited with their families, and everyone was moved to new territories under new lords. Dicen's family had died in a famine. He acted as though he mourned them, but this was actually convenient. He now needed to hide his identity as a vampire.

Dicen went on to serve his next lord as a butler. He did exemplary work...until the man turned up dead. Dicen had needed to feed...and the man had trusted him so. He was easy prey. Dicen continued this trend, employing various methods of currying sympathy, alibies, and anything else he needed in order to survive. This has been his existence: feigning emotion, performing as the perfect butler, hypnotizing people into being his alibies, taking a holiday and then flying back to the estate as a webwing in order to feed...

Dicentra Spectabilis is a vampire.

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The Present.

Dicentra has served under several masters by now, but lately, it's become more and more difficult to find new ones. The old way of governing has largely fallen out of fashion, and those rich and powerful enough to hire people with his particular skill set have become quite few (not that it was a particularly populous demographic to begin with.) In addition, it's not a bad thing to break up strings of employment with spans of quiet if one wants to hide his agelessness.

As such, Dicentra has recently taken to hiring himself out as a sort of "butler for rent." He offers three major services: gardening, housework, and tea time. Each service must be purchased individually, and only for a set amount of time. Prices range depending on the task and the amount of time purchased. Besides using this time as a sort of quiet period, there is another purpose at work here. Make no mistake, he is very much on the hunt - both for potential prey and for information on society's ever-shifting structure. After all, just because one customer would not make a very opportune meal does not mean the information gathered there won't lead to one.

Though he's not going to complain about it, and one must do what one must do, he is used to, ahem, "richer" food. Oddly, in that way, he can be a bit of a food snob in preference, even if in practice he won't be too picky.

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The Paranormal Huntress:

Though he is always careful and thorough in his preparation -- no matter how controlled the environment may be -- there is always the chance for unknown or unanticipated factors to pop up. Synstylae proved to be one of those factors.

It had been some time since he had truly fed, and though he was patient, he was perhaps a little too lax in his preparations this time. This was back when he was still serving dedicated masters instead of being a butler-for-hire. During this feeding, he was happened upon by Synstylae, fangs dug into his prey, and nearly finished with his meal. She had walked in. He noticed her. Immediately, she was pinned against the wall, Dicentra's calm smile and dangerous yet cold gaze right in front of her face, and blood still on his lightly-upturned lips.

He had seen this woman around before this appointed night of his latest master's demise. Said master was a superstitious sort -- ironic, really -- and had had her check the villa for ghosts. She had assured him that the residence was not haunted, but she displayed signs of curiosity about Dicentra himself. After that, from time to time, he saw her watching him while he was out and about, but hadn't thought that she would be a threat. Even when she would occasionally visit the villa, and set to joking around at him, he would thwart these attempts with natural ease. After all, how could he be frazzled by any of it? He was refined and easygoing butler. He even reversed some of the jests back at her. Still, the visits were relatively infrequent, even though it was clear that she had some sort of interest in him. Further, he'd successfully hidden his identity for many, many years now, and even sleuths could never pin him to the mysterious deaths of his masters. But now, here she was: witness to his true form.

She seemed to be in a state of shock. Unsurprising, even though she was a paranormal investigator of sorts. Her specialty was ghosts, not vampires. They were an entirely separate beast. Defenses against one were useless against the other. Indeed, she was at his mercy, and lacked experience with others of the same sort as he.

But what to do?

The quick and easy solution was to kill her. That would not do, however. True, it could be explained as her happening upon the murderer in the act, and the murderer could have killed in response, but that still drew more attention than he would have liked. Besides, the method of killing would have been different. Dicentra had already fed, so he wasn't too keen on consuming Synstylae too. That said, he did not necessarily have to resort to such grim measures just yet. He had the psychological advantage. He could press that.

The calm and pleasant butler's portrayal combined eerily with the visage of the bloodthirsty killer in a distorted overlay of identities. Calmly and quietly, he threatened her. She was never to reveal what she had witnessed, and was never to tell anyone what he truly was. His abilities in intuition, perception, speed, and strength far outclassed her own. He was an apex predator, and would be watching her for the rest of her days. If he even suspected that she was going to reveal what he truly was, he would kill her. He assured her that his secret would remain a secret, whether she cooperated or not.

The only reason she survived that night was because she agreed to keep that secret. Interestingly enough, she seemed to even enjoy it. Dicentra suspected that Syn (as she preferred to be called) was attracted to him, despite the threat. She even hired him as an independent butler (when he started doing that) to put on a tea time. During this, he was, of course, a perfect gentleman, though he didn't bother to hide his secret from her, as she already knew it. They even discussed it a little bit from time to time. When he asked her, she admitted that she liked being able to order him around, not that he minded at all. He would need feelings to be agitated.

The friendly teasing continued in their unusual, one-sided romance. Of course, she was well aware of his situation as well: that he not only did not consider himself to be in a romantic relationship with her, but that it was impossible for him to have feelings for her. She didn't mind, though. In fact, that he needed to stay nearby in order to ensure that she didn't share his secret made her feel somewhat special, and kind of "ensured" that he would "stay with her," as it were. He had no qualms with her seeing it that way, though he did warn her that if for whatever reason he decided to enter into a relationship with someone else, he would act as an unattached bachelor. She understood this and wasn't entirely too bothered by it. Perhaps she knew that it was unlikely that such an event would occur.

Indeed, their relationship ended in an unusual way. Synstylae disappeared one day. She did so without a trace, and so completely that even Dicentra could not find her. In the end, he decided to continue on as he had been as a butler for hire, acting as though nothing had changed. That said, he did always keep an ear out for her in case he came across some news. After all, it would not do for him to lose track of the woman who knew his secret.

(The above was written by me, but the concept came from this.)

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Odds and ends:

Favorite "Normal" Foods: blood sausage of any kind, red marrow in anything. (Subsists largely on these between true feedings.)

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People react to Dicen.

Dicen serves various temporary masters in this interaction thread.

"I wish you a most excellent time in your service to your lady, and hope that the pocket watch and glasses serve you well."
(And then, after I pointed out his Basic primary...) And then...
There are a lot of compliments directed at him in addition to Florence in Florence's bio as well.

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Affiliations

An official Nightwatcher Draconic Vampire


A contributor to T.E.A.S.

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Art

By CharCOL


By Crayzy


By worldless
(Unfortunately, the image seems to not be available anymore, but it was cool and I'll leave this here for posterity.)


By GlitchingFlame