Lys Flétri… Such a visual contradiction. The purity of the lily’s petals etched by the spreading brown of decay. I can think of no more perfect symbol of our kind. Understand that no matter your clan, no matter your past, at our core, we are the same. In your heart, in mine, lurks an ochre eyed beast just beneath the surface of a placid pool. This slavering monster drives us to destroy everything we strive to create, everything we love. This duality defines us as kindred, binds us together in ways that the kine cannot comprehend, and we master it.
True art speaks to the kindred duality, balancing it, molding it, directing it. Our paintings stir quiet contemplation, appealing to both your angel and devil. Our plays invite rapture, bringing bloody tears and genuine smiles. The lines of our architecture bring order and calm, while songs bring you to the brink of rage, and when our art helps you slip the leash we know how it is directed. This art, our art weaves the fabric of society, from the salons and symbels to the graffiti strewn streets and smoke filled nightclubs. The thrum of our music and the colors we splay over canvasses bias princes and barons just as they sway coteries and gangs.
The greatest art doesn’t just speak and guide, it elicits questions. It stokes a crucible of ethics and ideas, a twisting of self doubt and iron will. For vampires, the first question true art forces is which part of your self is ascendant: the horror of the Beast and the constant rasping din of hunger across the psyche or the coruscating light of your dreams and the better selves we know we can be? Join us in San Antonio, and we can explore this question together.
Exploits in San Antonio
Recognizing the duality of Humanity and the Beast, artists and patrons gathered to question the nature of the vampiric self. San Antonio provided the perfect locale for this, as it would gather Kindred from across the world for the first time since the terror of the Second Inquisition. What was intended as an exploration of the soul to better guide society through its future became something else. The journey itself became a piece of art, a tapestry to inspire, as true art does.
The goal was both simple and sublime. Le Lys Flétri sought to learn which held sway in the hearts of San Antonio’s Kinded: Humanity or Inhumanity. To this end they sought out their peers, as observers and questioners, to find and present the greatest story of grace or depravity. This they would announce as the new theme for the season.
At the penultimate hour, the Wilting Lilies gathered to share their gathered stories. Although they chose one Kindred’s struggle to survive during the Week of Nightmares as the greatest tale of the night, they found that the art of these turbulent nights is not simply a struggle of this basic duality, it is a struggle to preserve that which is being lost as the world burns. Inspired, the artists have set forth a new purpose.
