Leave me a drabble of backstory. It can be about anyone -- one of your characters, one of mine, someone else's, no-one's. Anyone. Then I'll write one for you.
Captain Lajos Tantony was just as ruggedly handsome as Ponder Stibbons had feared he'd be. He was watchman, after all. They were built like that.
With the exception of Corporal Nobbs. And Sergeant Colon. And, er, Reg Shoe, the Littlebottom fellow Commander Vimes himself...
And perhaps such a blanket statement as the above is not, as such, true on the whole. However, Lajos Tantony was undoubtedly tall, dark, well muscled and constructed, in possession of masculine features and piercing eyes, and currently making Ponder feel quite dumpy and shabby, though that is no particularly difficult feat.
He'd given fair warning about his shyness in person (and received vague warnings in return about an accent of some sort), and was relieved when the Captain made the first move toward any sort of greeting. That meant, at least, he recognized him. Ponder was not unaware that anyone in a pointy hat and robe was difficult not to recognize.
That the Captain hadn't yet said anything was a little intimidating. Ponder wracked his brain. It oughtn't to be so hard, he considered, to speak to someone he'd never spoken to in person before: he'd spoken to the man countless times on the P.C. Other people regularly held conversations with strangers without any such technical help on a daily basis.
The Captain was looking at him expectantly.
Ponder opened his mouth.
"Er..." he said, brilliantly.
"Er..." said the Captain, at the same time.
It was at that exact moment that Ponder knew they'd truly get along famously.
Captain Lajos Tantony had perhaps been expecting someone taller, but certainly someone wider. The short, young, beardless wizard that emerged from the carriage was certainly rather pudgy, not to say pot-bellied, but in no way as fat or plain as he seemed to think, from they shy, disparaing remarks he'd made about himself on the PC.
He looked rather ruffled, though, and quite tired. Something untowards had obviously happened to the tip of his pointy hat at some stage during his journey, and on his grey-green robe, there were stains.
Two further ruffled and bleary creatures emerged from the carriage, both as beautiful as Ponder was homely, but both undoubtedly his, from the way they looked at him, and took a step towards him, the beautiful long-legged white dog to push her muzzle into the wizard's hand, the tall, handsome man to put a friendly, casual hand on Ponder's shoulder.
Ponder! This was Ponder! The Captain felt something close to awe as he looked at the unprepossessing little fellow still holding on to the carriage door. Ponder, inventor and maintainer of the miraculous PC system that had opened up the world to Lajos Tantony in a way he'd never imagined possible, turning perfect strangers into instant friends, and hazy memories into secret loves. Ponder, who had understood Lajos so well, and who was so much like him in so many points, they had amusedly wondered whether they were really the same person. Ponder, who had been the only person to stand up for Lajos when he'd disgraced himself terribly with that anonymous poetry a few weeks ago - not because he had any idea that it had been Lajos, just from the natural kindness of his heart. And yet, Ponder did not suffer fools any more gladly than Captain Tantony himself did. The way Ponder had summarily wiped the floor with the rather forward and careless vampire artist that had recently turned up in Bonk (and in Lajos's life) had elicited a secret, deep amusement.
And now, that miracle was standing right before him, looking at him expectantly with big, gentle brown eyes so magnified by his glasses they seemed to lead independent lives, like goldfish.
Lajos opened his mouth.
"Er..." he said, too overwhelmed for a moment to even consider "Hello" an option.
"Er..." Ponder said, at the same time.
It was at that exact moment that the Captain knew for certain that he had, in fact, met a friend like no other.
It is a Douglas Adams thing, from the description of one of those batty professors at that formal Cambridge dinner where the retired time lord hides the salt cellar in that Greek vase...
I am reminded of that very succinct description quite often when people with glasses look at me.
Oh, riiight. The mad twisty book of DOOM. (It's a great de-stresser book, though. All my attention goes into the plot and not the stress.) And my glasses aren't quite thick enough to bring that on, but still. XD
Goodness, my brain is breaking! I am listening the the Nazgul entuse about her new computer that apprently so prods some backside, and writing that sixth drabble, and already thinking up new ideas, icons to make and manips to glue together. And then there is that other fandom. My mind is crack on speed at the moment.
If I turn up in Milliways tomorrow morning, too, I must be made to get off the train one station early (which is where the loony-bin is).
Cordelia has made quite the pastime out of watching what's going on around her. It's practically the only thing for a girl to do, around here, especially when there aren't any younger children in the family to be keeping an eye on. As such, she's become a fairly accurate guess at what's on people's minds - scarily accurate for a sixteen-year-old, sometimes. It rather surprises her when Imp first suggests they go out together, and she's not sure how long it'll last; still, they've known each other for years, and there are worse ways to start your romantic career than with an old friend. She realizes, after a couple of months, that he seems to be trying to convince himself that his eyes aren't following those young men learning how to properly set up a stone circle. There's no way this can end well, not the way things are going at the moment, but she's not willing to cause Imp any trouble. He gets enough grief from his father as it is, what with the whole music thing. So Cordelia breaks things off, as gently as she can manage, but only tells him part of the reason. He'll figure out the rest eventually, she's sure.
When Cordelia broke up with him, Imp was terribly ashamed.
Not because his very first relationship had failed. They mostly do, even in Llamedos, where things are a bit more staid, and dour, and foggy, than elsewhere on the Disc. Say, in Genua. Or in Ankh-Morpork, come to that. In Ankh-Morpork, your very first relationship might consist of the exchange of five dollars against a short round of wham-bam-thankyoumam, a well-travelled uncle had once told him. He had no idea what he meant by that, but had nodded and grinned as was expected of him.
No, he was ashamed because he falt a strange, surreptitious kind of relief. He had given it all a try, as he was supposed to do, and found it curiously lacking. He didn't want to hurt Cordelia, and so he had staid with her; but when she gently broke off things at last, he felt like a rabbit that had slipped the sling.
Now he was free to live for his music. At least that was what he was telling himself at the time.
Thank you! I am glad you like it. Pegging the characters is what I am aiming for, after all. Getting to know each others characters better is the main benefit of writing these drabbles, I think.
We're really meant to be king, you know. But I don't want to. You think it's strange, having something like that sprung on you. He's so confused. Who am I? Its head is spinning; she doesn't know. You wish you did. We wish we knew exactly who we were, all the time, and exactly what we were doing. There are people like that. People who know, always. Wouldn't it be nice to be like that? Wouldn't it be safe? Iyouhesheitweyouthey think it would be and wish and now that's who I am you are he/she/it is we are you are they are. I think, therefore we am.
It is a promise, a curse, an opening to a place inside him where all others are closed up securely. It is a place where he can put things that he saw, or that he wishes for, and turn himself into them instantly. He can decide what his stars are to tell him, what cards turn up in his game of life, and what his handwriting looks like, making things up as he goes along. He knows a freedom inaccessible to all those rather despicable little people caught up forever in their own little lives. He remakes himself from moment to moment for those that wait for him to do so.
Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be.
Anything he can ever think is his to turn into, and everything he had ever thought, or seen, or heard, or touched is his to remember, to call up as a perfect replica in his mind. The feeble creatures around him that rely on writing down things and then forget where they'd put the paper are so much beneath his contempt, he can't even imagine what such weakness must feel like. How can they listen to him reciting all those breath-takingly beautiful lines and then, in the very next moment, it is all wiped from their minds by an unknown force as inexorable as the tide that erases the letters scrawled into the wet sand with a stick? He had learned early on that everybody except him was like that, and it was rather impolite to call them stupid for it. His mother had been rather firm about not calling others stupid. And as he could turn himself into anything he thought he could ever by, he turned himself into a slightly more patient and rather more polite person. But the contempt stays on, buried deeply underneath, supplying a running commentary to his life.
Be free with your tempo, be free be free!
Still, despite all contempt for those sedentary and forgetful creatures shackled to their land, their homes, their loves, he has always been very free with his time and attention to all of them, extemporising whatever he needs to get what he wanted before he moves on. "We live from their applause", his father always reminded him. "From the pennies they spare us", his mother corrected. We live from their attention, and their admiration is owed to us - the rest is just tokens of that, he himself knows, but doesn't say, as it wouldn't be a very polite thing to say. So he bends himself to their expectations, and in turn draws their expectations into himself to make them do his bidding, to pander to his every whim, to read his wishes from his eyes as they deeply enjoy every minute they are allowed to be subservient to him, to emerge as from a daze or glamour after he moves on with what he wants. Rare are those irritating individuals that seem somehow immune to his gifts. He avoids those as best he can.
Surrender your ego - be free, be free to yourself!
What ego, though?
Oh, egotism he is accused of often, by those contemptible creatures that simply can't live with how brilliant he is; even of being egocentric. But if some shy shadow attracted to his light gets up their courage and looks into his eyes and asks, "Who are you really, beautiful one, deep down inside when you're all alone?" he always feels a bit at a loss.
I am this sensation, that wish, those lines of immortal text. I am my father's son, and never mind who my father really is. I am reticent and private and don't answer your questions. You are nosy, you hurt me, go away.
And with a polite and deeply enchanting smile, he tells another lie that isn't a lie, really, as there is no truth for it to mask. Just an empty centre.
Erm. Huh. That is entirely possible. But then, you characters were never for many words, and I most definitely am. Plus, I know him rather well and have much to say about him...
That said, I will have absolutely no problem whatsoever at all about seeing more again of either of them!! But then, the plot line you started with freeformchick is very, very promising already.
I answered Ji's drabble challenge today, only fair that I answer yours as well. *smiles innocently*
Aside from his mother, there had really only been one constant in Mordred's early life- birds. As Morgan could hardly be called a very constant person, it was really just the birds.
It started as game, and even as an adult he would mentally assign people birds. He had regretfully one night when he was six resigned himself that his Mother was Magpie, as she was too clueless to be a Raven. His cousin Gawain a Hawk, and the nice monk that Morgan sometimes stayed with was a Merlin (indeed, Mordred can no longer remember the man’s real name) Arthur…well, the boy had briefly toyed with giving his Father the title of Starling before his honest forced him to conclude that he really was a Hawk. Or a dragon. Yes, they were cold-blooded enough.
This was a game that worked almost without fail for the boy until he was thirteen. “You don’t have a bird.” The thirteen-year-old boy informed the ten-year-old girl before him. Gwenhwyvach blinked her great grey eyes at him. “Do I have to have a bird?” She asked him, puzzled. “Yes.” “Why?” He opened his mouth to reply, and couldn’t.
Later on, when they were trying to name their first child, Mordred looked at his blonde wife and clicked his fingers. She looked up, startled. “You,” he informed her, “are a Goose.”
It is hard to remember that they were people, once. Real people. Imagine that.
People with families, with loves, with small issues; people who would twist ankles, have meals, swear when they burned their fingers, and prayed to their gods, be they pagan or Christian.
So almost banal: three small children lined up on their knees, praying in Latin. A woman with her semi-secret lover, a priest. Drunk confessions among a convoluted group of friends, lovers and exes that just happened to throw the wrong two people in together, and broke the circle of easy friendship and long-supressed longing forever. Many lives touching in a web, with a few brilliant individuals as the hub nodes that held them together. This is the stuff that our lives are made of, each and every one.
This is the stuff legends are made of. When you add the names, Mordred, Morgan, Merlin, they become distorted in the blind mirror of the milennia, of the countless retellings, of history and myth and debate, of awe and parody. But truly, if you'd been there with them, you'd have heard tales of woe, of sudden shock, of quiet unhappiness and stunning turnabouts not much different to what you hear from your friends every day.
Well, thank you. But so are you. That was what I was struck by when reading your Arthurian pieces, and this drable; so this is what I wrote as an answer. I didn't really want to be adding to a world that is, essentially, yours alone.
Later, he will remember his reasoning behind going to the city: he may be wolf, but he has man in him as well, and man belongs in cities, does he not? For five days out of thirty he takes on the form of a man, so why not walk amongst humans and shrug off the mantle of the wolf for that brief period when he can fit in amongst people who won't immediately sense that he is different.
Later, he will know what it is like to speak with a human mouth using human words, instead of howling to the moon or communicating in the barks and growls that is the language of the wolf. Later, he will speak to people, and they won't know that he is anything but a rather tall, muscular young man with odd yellow eyes and pointed canine teeth.
Later, he will know what it is like to love someone he can only really be with five days out of thirty, and he will curse the moon each time it wanes and takes his love from him again.
Later, he will know these things.
Now, there is only the moon and the night and the chase.
When he was honest to himself, Reg Shoe knew his club was a collection of oddballs. But they were his oddballs, and that was a start. A Fresh Start, even.
The least odd among all of them, however, is Lupine. Lupine isn't odd, or cracked, or especially angry. Lupine isn't even un-dead, properly speaking. Lupine is very much alive, just a magical, shape changing creature that is hard to kill. Lupine is a natural creature, and he just is.
The others are there with an issue, with a fault, with a burning anger because something went wrong with their un-death. The others are there for the company, for the identity, for recognition. Lupine just is there.
If anything is odd about Lupine, then it's his love. Lupine and Ludmilla, moon-crossed lovers that are kept apart by nature. Such a thing isn't very typical for the down-to-earth wereman, so down to earth that he stands on it with foor feet instead of two most of the time.
Now, when you're truly undead, your love life is normally the last thing that concerns you. Too great is the worry that the pertinent parts might come off during or after. No, if you're undead, you need a burning issue to fill you and give your life meaning and impetus.
None of that is true for Lupine. He just is.
Reg Shoe knows that his Fresh Start Club won't have much to give to Lupine in the long run, but he is not above hoping that Lupine will have much to give to it while he is part of it.
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yakalskovich) wrote2004-09-13 05:42 am
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It's not very far back...
With the exception of Corporal Nobbs. And Sergeant Colon. And, er, Reg Shoe, the Littlebottom fellow Commander Vimes himself...
And perhaps such a blanket statement as the above is not, as such, true on the whole. However, Lajos Tantony was undoubtedly tall, dark, well muscled and constructed, in possession of masculine features and piercing eyes, and currently making Ponder feel quite dumpy and shabby, though that is no particularly difficult feat.
He'd given fair warning about his shyness in person (and received vague warnings in return about an accent of some sort), and was relieved when the Captain made the first move toward any sort of greeting. That meant, at least, he recognized him. Ponder was not unaware that anyone in a pointy hat and robe was difficult not to recognize.
That the Captain hadn't yet said anything was a little intimidating. Ponder wracked his brain. It oughtn't to be so hard, he considered, to speak to someone he'd never spoken to in person before: he'd spoken to the man countless times on the P.C. Other people regularly held conversations with strangers without any such technical help on a daily basis.
The Captain was looking at him expectantly.
Ponder opened his mouth.
"Er..." he said, brilliantly.
"Er..." said the Captain, at the same time.
It was at that exact moment that Ponder knew they'd truly get along famously.
Er...
He looked rather ruffled, though, and quite tired. Something untowards had obviously happened to the tip of his pointy hat at some stage during his journey, and on his grey-green robe, there were stains.
Two further ruffled and bleary creatures emerged from the carriage, both as beautiful as Ponder was homely, but both undoubtedly his, from the way they looked at him, and took a step towards him, the beautiful long-legged white dog to push her muzzle into the wizard's hand, the tall, handsome man to put a friendly, casual hand on Ponder's shoulder.
Ponder! This was Ponder! The Captain felt something close to awe as he looked at the unprepossessing little fellow still holding on to the carriage door. Ponder, inventor and maintainer of the miraculous PC system that had opened up the world to Lajos Tantony in a way he'd never imagined possible, turning perfect strangers into instant friends, and hazy memories into secret loves. Ponder, who had understood Lajos so well, and who was so much like him in so many points, they had amusedly wondered whether they were really the same person. Ponder, who had been the only person to stand up for Lajos when he'd disgraced himself terribly with that anonymous poetry a few weeks ago - not because he had any idea that it had been Lajos, just from the natural kindness of his heart. And yet, Ponder did not suffer fools any more gladly than Captain Tantony himself did. The way Ponder had summarily wiped the floor with the rather forward and careless vampire artist that had recently turned up in Bonk (and in Lajos's life) had elicited a secret, deep amusement.
And now, that miracle was standing right before him, looking at him expectantly with big, gentle brown eyes so magnified by his glasses they seemed to lead independent lives, like goldfish.
Lajos opened his mouth.
"Er..." he said, too overwhelmed for a moment to even consider "Hello" an option.
"Er..." Ponder said, at the same time.
It was at that exact moment that the Captain knew for certain that he had, in fact, met a friend like no other.
Re: Er...
>>eyes so magnified by his glasses they seemed to lead independent lives, like goldfish.<<
This is my very favorite line. :D
Re: Er...
*goes bright red*
I was sure you'd recognise it, too. Jill will, I suppose.-
In any case, I am glad you like it. Within minutes, there shall be two Ponder drabbles up on my LJ, by the way.
Re: Er...
Re: Er...
I am reminded of that very succinct description quite often when people with glasses look at me.
Re: Er...
And my glasses aren't quite thick enough to bring that on, but still. XD
Re: Er...
Re: Er...
Re: Er...
Goodness, my brain is breaking! I am listening the the Nazgul entuse about her new computer that apprently so prods some backside, and writing that sixth drabble, and already thinking up new ideas, icons to make and manips to glue together. And then there is that other fandom. My mind is crack on speed at the moment.
If I turn up in Milliways tomorrow morning, too, I must be made to get off the train one station early (which is where the loony-bin is).
no subject
They are here. One hopes you like them...
RPage backstory strikes again...
It rather surprises her when Imp first suggests they go out together, and she's not sure how long it'll last; still, they've known each other for years, and there are worse ways to start your romantic career than with an old friend.
She realizes, after a couple of months, that he seems to be trying to convince himself that his eyes aren't following those young men learning how to properly set up a stone circle. There's no way this can end well, not the way things are going at the moment, but she's not willing to cause Imp any trouble. He gets enough grief from his father as it is, what with the whole music thing.
So Cordelia breaks things off, as gently as she can manage, but only tells him part of the reason. He'll figure out the rest eventually, she's sure.
no subject
Not because his very first relationship had failed. They mostly do, even in Llamedos, where things are a bit more staid, and dour, and foggy, than elsewhere on the Disc. Say, in Genua. Or in Ankh-Morpork, come to that. In Ankh-Morpork, your very first relationship might consist of the exchange of five dollars against a short round of wham-bam-thankyoumam, a well-travelled uncle had once told him. He had no idea what he meant by that, but had nodded and grinned as was expected of him.
No, he was ashamed because he falt a strange, surreptitious kind of relief. He had given it all a try, as he was supposed to do, and found it curiously lacking. He didn't want to hurt Cordelia, and so he had staid with her; but when she gently broke off things at last, he felt like a rabbit that had slipped the sling.
Now he was free to live for his music. At least that was what he was telling himself at the time.
no subject
I think you've got the boy pegged. ::mad applause::
no subject
no subject
wish
and now
that's who
I am
you are
he/she/it is
we are
you are
they are.
I think, therefore we am.
Three Gifts And One Question
It is a promise, a curse, an opening to a place inside him where all others are closed up securely. It is a place where he can put things that he saw, or that he wishes for, and turn himself into them instantly. He can decide what his stars are to tell him, what cards turn up in his game of life, and what his handwriting looks like, making things up as he goes along. He knows a freedom inaccessible to all those rather despicable little people caught up forever in their own little lives. He remakes himself from moment to moment for those that wait for him to do so.
Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be.
Anything he can ever think is his to turn into, and everything he had ever thought, or seen, or heard, or touched is his to remember, to call up as a perfect replica in his mind. The feeble creatures around him that rely on writing down things and then forget where they'd put the paper are so much beneath his contempt, he can't even imagine what such weakness must feel like. How can they listen to him reciting all those breath-takingly beautiful lines and then, in the very next moment, it is all wiped from their minds by an unknown force as inexorable as the tide that erases the letters scrawled into the wet sand with a stick? He had learned early on that everybody except him was like that, and it was rather impolite to call them stupid for it. His mother had been rather firm about not calling others stupid. And as he could turn himself into anything he thought he could ever by, he turned himself into a slightly more patient and rather more polite person. But the contempt stays on, buried deeply underneath, supplying a running commentary to his life.
Be free with your tempo, be free be free!
Still, despite all contempt for those sedentary and forgetful creatures shackled to their land, their homes, their loves, he has always been very free with his time and attention to all of them, extemporising whatever he needs to get what he wanted before he moves on. "We live from their applause", his father always reminded him. "From the pennies they spare us", his mother corrected. We live from their attention, and their admiration is owed to us - the rest is just tokens of that, he himself knows, but doesn't say, as it wouldn't be a very polite thing to say. So he bends himself to their expectations, and in turn draws their expectations into himself to make them do his bidding, to pander to his every whim, to read his wishes from his eyes as they deeply enjoy every minute they are allowed to be subservient to him, to emerge as from a daze or glamour after he moves on with what he wants. Rare are those irritating individuals that seem somehow immune to his gifts. He avoids those as best he can.
Surrender your ego - be free, be free to yourself!
What ego, though?
Oh, egotism he is accused of often, by those contemptible creatures that simply can't live with how brilliant he is; even of being egocentric. But if some shy shadow attracted to his light gets up their courage and looks into his eyes and asks, "Who are you really, beautiful one, deep down inside when you're all alone?" he always feels a bit at a loss.
I am this sensation, that wish, those lines of immortal text. I am my father's son, and never mind who my father really is. I am reticent and private and don't answer your questions. You are nosy, you hurt me, go away.
And with a polite and deeply enchanting smile, he tells another lie that isn't a lie, really, as there is no truth for it to mask. Just an empty centre.
no subject
no subject
That said, I will have absolutely no problem whatsoever at all about seeing more again of either of them!! But then, the plot line you started with
I like those Southern hemisphere people...
no subject
Aside from his mother, there had really only been one constant in Mordred's early life- birds. As Morgan could hardly be called a very constant person, it was really just the birds.
It started as game, and even as an adult he would mentally assign people birds. He had regretfully one night when he was six resigned himself that his Mother was Magpie, as she was too clueless to be a Raven. His cousin Gawain a Hawk, and the nice monk that Morgan sometimes stayed with was a Merlin (indeed, Mordred can no longer remember the man’s real name) Arthur…well, the boy had briefly toyed with giving his Father the title of Starling before his honest forced him to conclude that he really was a Hawk. Or a dragon. Yes, they were cold-blooded enough.
This was a game that worked almost without fail for the boy until he was thirteen.
“You don’t have a bird.” The thirteen-year-old boy informed the ten-year-old girl before him. Gwenhwyvach blinked her great grey eyes at him.
“Do I have to have a bird?” She asked him, puzzled.
“Yes.”
“Why?” He opened his mouth to reply, and couldn’t.
Later on, when they were trying to name their first child, Mordred looked at his blonde wife and clicked his fingers. She looked up, startled.
“You,” he informed her, “are a Goose.”
no subject
People with families, with loves, with small issues; people who would twist ankles, have meals, swear when they burned their fingers, and prayed to their gods, be they pagan or Christian.
So almost banal: three small children lined up on their knees, praying in Latin. A woman with her semi-secret lover, a priest. Drunk confessions among a convoluted group of friends, lovers and exes that just happened to throw the wrong two people in together, and broke the circle of easy friendship and long-supressed longing forever. Many lives touching in a web, with a few brilliant individuals as the hub nodes that held them together. This is the stuff that our lives are made of, each and every one.
This is the stuff legends are made of. When you add the names, Mordred, Morgan, Merlin, they become distorted in the blind mirror of the milennia, of the countless retellings, of history and myth and debate, of awe and parody. But truly, if you'd been there with them, you'd have heard tales of woe, of sudden shock, of quiet unhappiness and stunning turnabouts not much different to what you hear from your friends every day.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Later, he will know what it is like to speak with a human mouth using human words, instead of howling to the moon or communicating in the barks and growls that is the language of the wolf. Later, he will speak to people, and they won't know that he is anything but a rather tall, muscular young man with odd yellow eyes and pointed canine teeth.
Later, he will know what it is like to love someone he can only really be with five days out of thirty, and he will curse the moon each time it wanes and takes his love from him again.
Later, he will know these things.
Now, there is only the moon and the night and the chase.
no subject
The least odd among all of them, however, is Lupine. Lupine isn't odd, or cracked, or especially angry. Lupine isn't even un-dead, properly speaking. Lupine is very much alive, just a magical, shape changing creature that is hard to kill. Lupine is a natural creature, and he just is.
The others are there with an issue, with a fault, with a burning anger because something went wrong with their un-death. The others are there for the company, for the identity, for recognition. Lupine just is there.
If anything is odd about Lupine, then it's his love. Lupine and Ludmilla, moon-crossed lovers that are kept apart by nature. Such a thing isn't very typical for the down-to-earth wereman, so down to earth that he stands on it with foor feet instead of two most of the time.
Now, when you're truly undead, your love life is normally the last thing that concerns you. Too great is the worry that the pertinent parts might come off during or after. No, if you're undead, you need a burning issue to fill you and give your life meaning and impetus.
None of that is true for Lupine. He just is.
Reg Shoe knows that his Fresh Start Club won't have much to give to Lupine in the long run, but he is not above hoping that Lupine will have much to give to it while he is part of it.
And of course, he does.