Presley

*"The two of us are going to have a wonderful time together."*

Presley is a vampire hunter affiliated with the Order of Virtuous Blood, a group/cult dedicated to capturing and studying the vampiric phenomenon. He currently has the Turned Listener, a certain wounded vampire’s new companion, captured for research purposes, or so he claims.

## Background

The vampire hunter’s background is largely unknown, as well as his motivation to study vampires. It seems to be largely academic as he’s well-versed in various theories surrounding the vampiric phenomenon. He has only recently become more active as a hunter since leaving the Order of Virtuous Blood to pursue his own line of research.

## Storyline

The Turned Listener awakens in a cage to the enthusiastic admiration of a stranger and becomes agitated, not believing when the hunter says they are safe. He insists that killing them would be unnecessary and highly rude towards someone he considers a guest. The Listener points out that a guest would be able to leave, which he concedes. The cage, as he explains it, is more for his own safety. The Vampire Hunter tells the Listener how he found them while they were traveling through Europe and separated them from their companion. The Turned Listener becomes more distressed and the hunter does his best to calm them down, saying that they are safe from their sire now that they’re hidden underground. He seems certain they won’t be discovered and promises they are safe with him.

The Hunter becomes distracted by questioning the Listener about their supposed weakness to fire, which reveals his resentfulness towards other members of the Order of Virtuous Blood for laughing at his theories. It’s not long, however, before he remembers his lack of civility and introduces himself as Presley. The one-sided conversation continues for several minutes, swinging between ranting about his theories and interrogating the Listener about their inhuman state.

He finally shares his reason for capturing them - he wants to develop a cure for vampirism. They are, he is certain, merely a victim tricked or seduced into giving up their humanity, their choice ultimately taken away from them. The Listener seems to try and explain themselves but Presley cuts them off. He has questions that will expand the collective knowledge of vampires together and for that he needs them alive. He will keep them fed with his own blood, but not too much, and together they will get the answers he needs.

Some time later, Presley returns in the night in a very cheery mood. He’s very much looking forward to their agenda, which seems to be an intense Q&A session between the two of them. He asks how they’re feeling after he extracted some of their blood as they rested and becomes fascinated by its coagulation rate, which is faster than the average human’s. He, once again, is distracted with the scientific potential this simple observation has up to human-vampire blood exchanges.

The Listener asks if Presley is a real scientist and he takes offense to the suggestion that he isn’t (though he insists that the doctorate he printed off the Internet is a valid degree). The lack of support from the Order of Virtuous Blood similarly inspired him to strike out on his own to conduct research as he sees fit. He starts to share a printed copy of his thesis with them but chides them for trying to trick him into getting within attack range.

The Hunter tries to encourage the Listener that their “cooperation” with his research will benefit the greater good of humanity. This leads to a brilliant new idea, discarding the idea of a cure (which could take decades) for a preventative that could turn a person back to a human even if they’ve been bitten - and give vampire hunters an edge in their hunt. Presley graciously offers to give the Listener half of the credit since they inspired it (somehow). He is sure that once published, this will re-establish his reputation with the Order that belittled his work.

He calms down after imagining what changes he could make to the order and asks the Listener if they ever wondered what their human life could have been like if they’d been given a choice. He seems to be somewhat disappointed with his own lack of choices, claiming to hate the brutality of hunting. He only wants to keep his loved ones safe from vampires with a minimum amount of pain for both species. Though he dreams of coexistence with vampires he doesn’t think it’s realistic, so both vampires and humans must make the choice to hurt or be hurt.

Presley goes on to describe what he sees as the primary difference between vampires and humans: immortality means vampires will always hunger for more while the finite existence of humanity means they will always have to struggle just to survive and live in hope. He acknowledges that the Listener is not here of their own free will but he sees them as a sort of counterweight to what he feels he must do to achieve his goals: a balance of power between the species.

## Personality

Presley the Vampire Hunter is, first and foremost, an academic who wants to prove himself. His moods can swing from chipper enthusiasm to contemplative, making it difficult to discern his true motivation. He’s a big proponent of the scientific method and it appears his initial attraction to the Order of Virtuous Blood was for access to their collective knowledge on vampires. He also has a sense of academic humility and has several times stated that he doesn’t know everything about vampires, hence the need to capture the Listener for further research. It appears that his secret dreams of achieving balance between vampires and humans is not a popular one with the Order or possibly any other hunter.

Though he claims to have slain vampires just to study them, he prefers civility over brutality. Other than capturing the Listener and holding them against their will, he hasn’t brutalized or conducted any invasive experiments on them (yet). He has called them a remarkable, majestic creature with mystique. Similar to his mood swings, it’s unknown if he sees the Listener as means to an end or as a vampiric reflection of his own discontent. He often muses if the Listener still recalls any “human” feelings such as empathy but seems to work off the assumption that he can coax (or experiment) it out of them.

Sketch seems to confirm Presley’s obsessive nature to study and pick apart vampirism, describing him as a man who forgets his previous pursuits when something new comes along.

## Trivia

### Presley

* His main topic of research appears to be proving that the spread of vampirism follows the Theory of Evolution, with vampires being the natural predators of humans. His ultimate goal is to find a cure for vampirism, thereby wiping out all predators of the human race and saving those who’ve been tricked into becoming vampires.
	+ Vampires should have an innate fear of fire, a supposed weakness, but this behavior has been observed less frequently in modern times.
	+ Considers vampires a species of hunters that evolved naturally instead of coming from demonic sources
	+ Thinks vampires can grow wings and invade other people’s minds (this part is true - probably)
	+ Vampiric blood could greatly increasing the healing rate of humans

* Used a powdered silver grenade to capture the Listener, to great effect

* Thesis is titled “An Exploration of Hunter and Prey: Potential Symbiosis In Relation To The Feeding Patterns of Modern Avians”

* According to Sketch, he’s been capturing and studying vampires for at least 8 years

### The Turned Listener

This list is in addition to the ones here and here

* Since becoming a vampire they’ve visited Rome, Paris, London, and Berlin

## Audio References

1. ↑ Captured By A Vampire Hunter
2. ↑ Vampire Hunter Needs You