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Adrian had never been the type of guy to hold down a traditional job and being Moroi, he had wealth and privilege to insulate him from the real world for a lot longer than most people. Still, since branching out to Palm Springs and now to the Nexus, he had to actually work to support himself even if it was just as supplement and not his main income source.

To that end, he'd set himself up in the hotel lobby doing caricatures. It worked for people down on the boardwalk and while he didn't have the advantage of great natural lighting indoors, his pale skin wouldn't appreciate the sun beating down on him while he was trying to work so it was a fair enough trade off. He was charging a few bucks per portrait and while it was mostly pocket change, it did keep him from getting bored.

Right now, he was working on a drawing of Sydney just to hone his skills. It was mostly her blonde hair with a prominent chin and generous mouth but it was coming together and starting to look distinctly Alchemist like. He was toying with whether or not to add the lily to her cheek when he decided against it; Sydney had broken away from that life and maybe he needed to respect that and depict her as such.

He looked up every once in a while, hoping to catch the eye of someone he could charm into buying a portrait off him. Pocket change, sure, but every little bit helped.

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Adrian finishes a few final strokes of the pencil against the portrait and takes a look, trying to decide if it needs something. He pulls the sheet off his pad and shows it to Hal, wanting his opinion.

"Well, what do you think of it? You look positively harmless."

It has been over fifty-five years since he has last seen his own reflection, running a hand over his hair as if to wonder at what it has grown to look like. He keeps the picture close at hand, thinking that though he knows he has not aged, there are more years around his eyes. "You're very talented," he praises, folding the paper quite precisely. "Have you been doing this for very long?"

"I'm 22, so uh, twelve years or so?" Adrian said. "Give or take. I feel like it's a long time but I'm getting the sense you're a lot older than me so a long time for me is probably a drop in the bucket for you, right?"

"I lost count around five hundred and twenty-five," Hal says with a slow nod of his head, given that he hardly knows what he had done with his own life when he was twenty-two. He can't even recall what age he had been turned, after so many years distanced from it. "I've my own small skills in drawing, of course, but no reflection to draw a self-portrait."

"Did you remember what your face looked like?" Adrian realized it could be construed as a rude question but he meant it more in simple curiosity. He couldn't imagine going without a reflection for hundreds of years and not knowing what his own face looked like, not knowing each individual little stroke of it.

"Before I placed myself in isolation, many portraits were commissioned of me," Hal assures, which means he has seen his face rendered many times over. "And my former best friend had quite the talent for description. He did his best." Still, with no mirrors, photographs, or video possible, that was all Hal could rely on -- the subjective basis of others.

"I couldn't imagine not being able to see my own reflection," Adrian said, laughing a little. "And having to rely upon other people. I don't think they could capture just how perfect and glorious I am."

Hal arches his brow. "You've quite the ego, I see? Was that also developed from years of practice or something you were merely born with," Hal remarks, polite yet only mildly cutting, as the boy has just given him a free portrait.

"Born that way. I'm from a royal house," Adrian explained. "And I'm a prince. It's hard to look this good but someone has to do it," he joked.

"In all seriousness, I'm glad we can still see ourselves in the mirror."

"I believe the reason we can't, where I'm from, is because the devil has taken a part of us," he says, quiet and serious. Not many can say they've met the devil, but thanks to the first world war and the concurrent war between vampires and werewolves, he has met the creature. He puts that out of his mind as best as he can, eyeing his companion anew.

"Prince? Of what?"

"A Moroi prince," Adrian said, flashing his fangs a little. He was used to hiding them among humans but he had already established that this guy was anything but human. "From House Ivashkov. There's eleven other royal houses but ours was most recently in power before Dragomir. We alternate...my aunt was queen until she died."

"The words sound very pretty, I assure you, but they mean nothing to me." This form of himself, this good cycle, did not value lying and so he offered honesty wherever he could. It made him think of Leo to do so, always open and honest; always wise. "And what duties does a prince of your bearing hold?"

"Nothing really, my dad does most of the prince stuff. He has to sit on the Council and represent us when we vote and everything. I will eventually," Adrian pointed out, "But my dad has to die first, so we're a long way off from decisions being made by me. Which is probably a good thing, all told."

The weariness of decisions had always plagued at him and Hal is immensely grateful that he has been in hiding for long enough that his decisions, by and large, are hardly ever asked for. When he was bad, when he was evil, he hadn't minded who got caught in the crossfire, but that was a long time ago. "And do you yearn for it? Power?"

"Not really. It means I have to be responsible and I'm allergic to responsibility," Adrian said, shrugging a little.

"I guess it might be nice to be called King Adrian or something but really, I'm fine with being a prince and being left pretty much alone by the royal court. There's too many rules and regulations that go along with that and my friend Lissa is a great queen. She can have it."

Hal feels that old frisson burst through him, whispering about how he could be a King too, a ruler of all things mortal and they would bow to him and they would worship him and he would never be hungry. As always, Hal closes his eyes tightly and ignores it, ignores any hint of that old life. "Is she like you, then? Young, but different?" he asks, shaking off the tremor in his voice to gain control again.

"Lissa? Yeah. She's Moroi," Adrian explained. "And she uses the same element that I do in her magic. She's just...a lot more put together than I am ever going to be. I guess having a functional family for your formative years will do that to a person. My parents have never been functional."

Once more, this is something that Hal has no experience in. Family is foreign to him, as foreign as the concept of humanity is. "Well, then, let her live long and reign, then," he suggests. "Don't form a coup and I believe you will have great luck skirting away from your responsibilities."