Eleanor bore the measuring with good grace, while Erasmus stood for it stoically, as one might bear a temporary inconvenience--- which, as far as he was concerned, was what it amounted to. It was probably just as well that he finished first.
They listened to Elias without comment, though Eleanor looked up, visibly surprised, at the mention of human blood for herself. She quickly schooled the expression away, though there was something conflicted in her eyes even then. Erasmus, as ever, was impassive, but the significance of it was not lost upon him.
Perhaps it was different for them. Vampires came in different breeds, after all, and he had heard of places where the rules were not as he knew them. But the court that had turned them, and every court thereafter, had kept his sister on pigs' blood and nothing more. To drink human blood was to accumulate power, though the strongest vampires preferred the blood of their own brethren for the sake of efficiency. Erasmus had tasted it too, on occasion. Eleanor's diet had been just as much a tool to hamper her as the removal of her fangs had been.
But to drink human blood was to become one of the monsters. Erasmus knew that this was what his sister had been thinking. How long had they known each other? It was impossible not to know.
But then, what did that make him?
Erasmus broke from his thoughts to arch a brow at Elias as the latter lingered on the word 'intimate', but in the end, said nothing more than a simple, short, "Understood." After Elias made his exit, he checked in with Eleanor, but she told him with a slight motion of her head that he was free to go. Turning to Morgan, she smiled, and if it looked still a little troubled, it was, at least, a valiant effort. "Well then," she said, "we should see to your poor hands..."
The intervening two days had been uneventful. This was, in theory, everything that Erasmus had hoped for when he came here to negotiate with the head of the family. However, Erasmus was finding that he was ill suited to this newfound peace, pacing his rooms with such restlessness that Eleanor pleaded with him to go out hunting if it pleased him, anything to temper his troubled energy.
And hunting he went, though it brought him no joy. Humans were easy prey compared to what he was used to. There was no joy in killing under orders either, but he had come to think of the pursuit as a test of skill, one that he was chagrined to discover that he had come to enjoy.
With blood on his hands and a troubled heart, he returned on the eve of the meeting--- or the dawn, such as it was--- and went to his rest no more calmed than he had been.
Twilight saw him cleaned and sober, having borne under the attendance of the servants with little more grace than he had borne the measurements, walking out of the mansion and into the courtyard. He was dressed immaculately, though he had to resist the urge to tug at his collar, at his sleeves. He was used to a certain degree of freedom of movement, even in his formal wear, but clearly this ensemble was to serve as a leash, and not tasteful decoration for an unobtrusive thug. He had never been a focal point of social gatherings, and thus far into his debut, he found that he did not care for it.
He let himself into the passenger seat of the sleek black car, and though his expression did not change when he discovered Elias in the driver's seat, there was a slight curiosity to his tone that gave him away. "You drive?" he said, not entirely blandly. He had expected a chauffeur, and in truth, had thought to needle Elias slightly by choosing not to join him in the back seat. But he was nothing if not adaptable, and given the current circumstances, it would have looked even more strange if he had been alone in the back instead.