“Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”
Had one ever suffered so much in so little time? Most probably, but never does one think of others when engulfed in turmoil and confusion, hurt by those they love and failing again and again in the choices they make. Even saving graces, reliable rocks and life’s frequent delights can be swept up with the shadows that smother a conflicted mind...
~
Following the snow strewn cobbles she wound her way slowly from south port towards the marketplace of north Tarrund. Not really knowing where she was going or why, just needing to do something rather than sitting inside alone, wavering between sadness and resolve over all that had happened and all that was yet to come. The winter chill swirled at her skirts and threatened to sting at her pale skin yet it could not quite reach her...something within held it back...or drew it within in some mysterious unrealised greed.
To the eyes of another she may have looks misplaced somehow. Wandering the streets without wrap or cloak, snowflakes landing on snow white bare shoulders unfelt or fading against silky windswept hair that seemed perhaps a shade beyond the darkest black. Large deep-set and equally dark eyes gazed forward but held hint of thinking on somewhere else entirely. The smile she fought so hard to keep for others, encouraging, supportive, understanding...forgiving...was misplaced upon her lips; lost to a deep and thoughtful twist as she chewed lightly upon the lower. It may have seemed a subtle and yet tragically endearing image, a seemingly young woman out in the cold with much on her mind...love, loyalty and loss. Until one knew what she was and what she may be capable of.
~
Blaze paused in her step "Eoin...?" she said in a soft hush. It was still hard to believe he was really back, felt like a dream to see him there in the Tarrund colours of old, so blue against the snowy backdrop. At his name he looked up and smiled falsely. It was a perfect facade, but if she thought to feel his emotions as she once did, she'd see through it. "Hello, Blaze." he said, stepping out of the snow.
She felt a tug of sadness. Putting one hand up touching the tree she did not feel at all the crisp coldness which clung to its bark. She still felt hesitant about closing the gap between them...worried he was too lost to the despair he was carrying and that she would feel like a failure to not be strong enough to bring him out of it. "How are you?" she asked rather awkwardly. He stepped onto the rock that separated them. "Alright." he replied honestly. He'd been better, he'd been worse. He had just pushed all the memories to the back of his mind.
She nodded mutely then hung her head slightly. Perhaps she did not realise having not felt their connection in so long, yet she was sharing in his sadness, feeling its edge inside of her. She peered up at him her hair fallen over one cheek as she tipped her head "Do you....regret it now?" she asked in a near whisper, she thought he would know what she meant...that day he came to her house, changed his path forever. He looked up at her question. He looked into her eyes, black orbs, and his had lost all their golden shine. He nodded slightly, his face didn't move.
She looked back at him, feeling a great weight crush her from the inside. She did not move but her eyes welled up with tears. Eventually she turned away, hiding her face in her hands. She felt the need to run...somewhere...yet she found she was frozen. A wave of loneliness swept through her that only a vampire would understand. She felt a chill surround her, but not from the winter season, something far more intense and embedded within her. In that moment she could no longer bare to look at him, the glow she had once given him lost. She choked on a sob and half stumbled as she then fluidly stepped more quickly back to the south and away from his tormenting figure.
~
She walked without purpose or direction back through the southern port. A great empty loneliness hung within her, like a crushing internal weight. Her brighter demeanour of the last days vanquished with just the single saddened nod of another. Reluctant to go home she sat on the edge of a crate beside the tavern and stared at the ground. Snowflakes lazily tumbled across the ground and melted on the tip of her boot whilst she stared teary eyed down at them. Then she heard a voice come from nowhere...
“Having fun there?”
A tall dark figure walked up to her and smiled some, his eyes under the dark shadow start to glow a deep red. Two red orbs start to show from under the darkness of the hood as he watches the woman, seeing into her aura for a bit.
She looked up, teary eyed, her expression hardened slightly as if to say 'does it look like I'm fine?' She let out a long deep cold sigh and shook her head slightly. She felt a void within her, as if something had been torn away...and all with just another’s nod. She raised her dark eyes, for once her senses had evaded her and she was surprised to see him having come so close so quickly, she looked back at his own, twitched slightly then sighed again somewhat defeated.
He smirked some, but does so drawing his mouth closer to the shadows to make it less visible and he only does it slightly as he watched her. "So what happened to you? You seem down..." She looked over him, outwardly she started to look guarded, subtle movements of her arm and such yet inwardly she was stranded. "Why do you care?" she said rather scathingly and the spitting tone of her voice startled her.
He walked up to her, getting closer and closer giving her a small smile "I’m curious, maybe I can help. Hard to turn away from one whom is the same as I am." She seemed to pause at this, naturally wary of her own kind given she knew what they were capable of and she was rather...different and yet in ways similar. Her eyes trailed up the length of his body as he came closer, towering over her though she did not yet feel intimidation and a mild curiosity was ignited amidst her sadness. Following the curve of his hood she found again those red eyes, buried within, slid to the rather menacing weapon at his spine then back again. She brushed her hair from her pale face "You feel you must help one of your own?" she answered. She was surprised, as she never felt that way inclined to any other vampire...besides one...one who seemed to forever desert her.
He just continued to watch her closely as he smirked a bit again "Well, if we don’t help each other out, un-life gets rather stale and such, you know? So what is your name?" She wrinkled her nose ever so slightly. That word...un-dead...made her momentarily face that side of herself in thought till she pushed it away. She straightened a little, met his gaze with her own rather more steeled and a strange smile played at her lips "Blaze..." she said simply.
He grinned some at her as his mind would touch hers, moving to see if he can seek out some information about her, personal or otherwise. Whatever she would let him see as he would lean down, trying to catch her gaze in his. "Pleasure to have met you, I am Darius." Looking at him silently for a moment she did not break that gaze. She could feel him creeping into her mind, testing the water so to speak and for all her sins she still felt the thrill as much as she had the last time she made perhaps such a grave mistake "Perhaps...the pleasure is mine" she murmured, her smile curling more sinisterly.
So far successful he continued to work his power on her. He wanted more, he wanted to pick her brain apart and he felt the opening she left. He pushed and pushed, trying to get more and more from her. He pushed so much of himself into her he would threaten to take over if she let it continue. He grinned a bit as he attempts to take from her. Involuntary her eyelashes fluttered slightly then looked away from him. Yet she felt a boiling fury stir so full of conflicting emotions all at once that she made the mistake of looking back, and it was like a cold grip choking her. And yet it felt so...liberating, to let another deal with her feelings so she did not have to.
He smiled some and continued to dig around, going deeper and deeper, trying to figure out her mental state, what was this woman thinking in the back of her mind he wondered. Working to find out her deepest darkest thoughts, he continued. She felt that hold tighten still. It was alluring, darkly decadent even though she could see herself from the outside putting herself in the most foolish of dangers. Truth was Eoin had just left a void in her mind, where she once always felt him there was now a gaping hole, and she craved to fill it with something not to feel the pain of being betrayed by her own, hurt and walked over like she always was. Yet somewhere she imagined Alastair's face if he were to see her this way and it made her open her eyes properly, not the half hooded black lazy pupils which had become fixed on his own..they became brighter with a curious blue hue and fiercer "Stop!" she said in a cracked voice "...please" she took a deep breath and frowned at him, never feeling one mind so strong being a stranger "What are you?" she demanded glaring at him slightly.
He grinned at her as he speaks, but his words are heard more in her mind then through her ears "I am a vampire, but I am old, only second removed from the first. One who is more powerful then you will ever know half-breed, but I can offer you a chance to share in my power and leave behind the weakness that you now have. And in return you will gain power, and I will grant you true control over that void in you"
She watched him in stony silence, but her eyes narrowed...it all sounded so vainly familiar. She focused and her voice carried like an icy hush though her pale lips did not move "I want none of your power...my weaknesses are what keep me from becoming something I despise!" she said, though there was a tremor in her tone, he had caught her weak minded and lonely given Eoin's choice "As tempting as you may think you are...I can still resist you" she answered boldly, hoping she was right. He grinned as he looked into the woman's mind again, trying to pick out the face of the one who she turned, wanting his name and face.
She suddenly felt a rather dark urge to see if he tasted as bitter as he felt, show him what she was capable of and spit it in his face...yet it was a tempting bitterness...was like having the power of that cursed demon in her mind once again. Yet she was on her feet, the image of Eoin flashed in her mind yet she pulled it back in protection as she still loved him as her own "You leave him alone!" she said in a snakelike whisper, tiny beside him but in her anger not noticing.
He let her see himself talking to Eoin, telling him of his clan and the man actually said he liked it and would get back to him, it seemed like he had already met the man she sired and he may just join his clan. He showed her all the images of the encounter. “If you want to be with him, you should re-consider my offer” Yet she would not fall for that image. Though for a split second she wavered in disgust "YOU LIE" she spat and pushed passed him, he made her skin crawl yet in a way she was disgusted to have felt its thrill.
~
She blindly ran to the hill top, overlooking the expanse of the water. She could feel her heart caving. She wished Alastair was here. He was the only one that knew her so well, without any bond of mind or blood he understood the depths of her soul even if they confused him at times. He would comfort her, love her, and understand her...she hoped. Yet she also knew what he would think, that she should have foreseen this...that nothing good came of creating vampires. She let her eyes close, heavy and exhausted with yet another weight upon her, another failed good intention, another betrayal...another abandonment.
To feel connected to Eoin was inescapable, he was part of her...it was not the kind of love that two people began to feel slowly or even head over heels, it was different, not love but an extention of oneself, ingrained from that single act of offering him the gift of immortality, even if he had once sought for more. She had saved his life, against her better judgement and now he regretted it. She felt lost. Darius’s offer swirled in her mind. How many times had she been promised such salvation, twisted and dark? And yet she had not been strong enough to resist it before....long ago.
She slumped to the ground, a fist full of snow was sent in a white arc where it fell to the crashing rocks below. She glimpsed up to the waning sun, a cold sad realisation that even amongst all this pain there was still something deeper...though different. She looked over the expanse of water, the Claw caves in the distance where her daughter lay sleeping, safe and warm...for now. Her arms came about herself and she lowered her eyelids, fresh tears hung then smeared as she buried her head against her knees, knowing Elemmírë would soon be far away. It was for the best, so much danger, ever growing threats it was the most responsible thing she and Alastair could do to send her to live anonymously with a family that would care for and protect her, a life of relative normality...or so they hoped. But that did not stop the heartache, like another limb about to be torn.
She turned her head to the side, gazing towards the snow frosted trees then realised she was trembling. Where was that strong side of her? As usual deserted her when she needed it most. She looked down at her hands, her skin looked fragile somehow. She could see veins prominent and blue just below the surface at her wrist. Without clear thought she lifted it to her lips.
The world went black then suddenly was back again, sprung to life in a blinding light, the wintery scene reflected off the water and the sun higher in the sky. Her cheek was numb, having lain down against the snow. She sat up bewildered; feeling like an hour of her life has slipped past her unaware. She felt dizzy and reached up to touch at her temple. Only then did she see the wound, small but unavoidable, oozing blood which had dried winding a path down to her elbow. With a sinking feeling she looked down, eyes flickered over crimson droplets, frozen in place framed starkly against the white backdrop. It was not much but it was enough to bring a feeling of shame to her cheeks. Will I ever be enough? She thought desperately. Will I always be overlooked?
Stiffly she got to her feet, withdrew her hands into her sleeves and walked slowly and silently towards home.
Had one ever suffered so much in so little time? Most probably, but never does one think of others when engulfed in turmoil and confusion, hurt by those they love and failing again and again in the choices they make. Even saving graces, reliable rocks and life’s frequent delights can be swept up with the shadows that smother a conflicted mind...
~
Following the snow strewn cobbles she wound her way slowly from south port towards the marketplace of north Tarrund. Not really knowing where she was going or why, just needing to do something rather than sitting inside alone, wavering between sadness and resolve over all that had happened and all that was yet to come. The winter chill swirled at her skirts and threatened to sting at her pale skin yet it could not quite reach her...something within held it back...or drew it within in some mysterious unrealised greed.
To the eyes of another she may have looks misplaced somehow. Wandering the streets without wrap or cloak, snowflakes landing on snow white bare shoulders unfelt or fading against silky windswept hair that seemed perhaps a shade beyond the darkest black. Large deep-set and equally dark eyes gazed forward but held hint of thinking on somewhere else entirely. The smile she fought so hard to keep for others, encouraging, supportive, understanding...forgiving...was misplaced upon her lips; lost to a deep and thoughtful twist as she chewed lightly upon the lower. It may have seemed a subtle and yet tragically endearing image, a seemingly young woman out in the cold with much on her mind...love, loyalty and loss. Until one knew what she was and what she may be capable of.
~
Blaze paused in her step "Eoin...?" she said in a soft hush. It was still hard to believe he was really back, felt like a dream to see him there in the Tarrund colours of old, so blue against the snowy backdrop. At his name he looked up and smiled falsely. It was a perfect facade, but if she thought to feel his emotions as she once did, she'd see through it. "Hello, Blaze." he said, stepping out of the snow.
She felt a tug of sadness. Putting one hand up touching the tree she did not feel at all the crisp coldness which clung to its bark. She still felt hesitant about closing the gap between them...worried he was too lost to the despair he was carrying and that she would feel like a failure to not be strong enough to bring him out of it. "How are you?" she asked rather awkwardly. He stepped onto the rock that separated them. "Alright." he replied honestly. He'd been better, he'd been worse. He had just pushed all the memories to the back of his mind.
She nodded mutely then hung her head slightly. Perhaps she did not realise having not felt their connection in so long, yet she was sharing in his sadness, feeling its edge inside of her. She peered up at him her hair fallen over one cheek as she tipped her head "Do you....regret it now?" she asked in a near whisper, she thought he would know what she meant...that day he came to her house, changed his path forever. He looked up at her question. He looked into her eyes, black orbs, and his had lost all their golden shine. He nodded slightly, his face didn't move.
She looked back at him, feeling a great weight crush her from the inside. She did not move but her eyes welled up with tears. Eventually she turned away, hiding her face in her hands. She felt the need to run...somewhere...yet she found she was frozen. A wave of loneliness swept through her that only a vampire would understand. She felt a chill surround her, but not from the winter season, something far more intense and embedded within her. In that moment she could no longer bare to look at him, the glow she had once given him lost. She choked on a sob and half stumbled as she then fluidly stepped more quickly back to the south and away from his tormenting figure.
~
She walked without purpose or direction back through the southern port. A great empty loneliness hung within her, like a crushing internal weight. Her brighter demeanour of the last days vanquished with just the single saddened nod of another. Reluctant to go home she sat on the edge of a crate beside the tavern and stared at the ground. Snowflakes lazily tumbled across the ground and melted on the tip of her boot whilst she stared teary eyed down at them. Then she heard a voice come from nowhere...
“Having fun there?”
A tall dark figure walked up to her and smiled some, his eyes under the dark shadow start to glow a deep red. Two red orbs start to show from under the darkness of the hood as he watches the woman, seeing into her aura for a bit.
She looked up, teary eyed, her expression hardened slightly as if to say 'does it look like I'm fine?' She let out a long deep cold sigh and shook her head slightly. She felt a void within her, as if something had been torn away...and all with just another’s nod. She raised her dark eyes, for once her senses had evaded her and she was surprised to see him having come so close so quickly, she looked back at his own, twitched slightly then sighed again somewhat defeated.
He smirked some, but does so drawing his mouth closer to the shadows to make it less visible and he only does it slightly as he watched her. "So what happened to you? You seem down..." She looked over him, outwardly she started to look guarded, subtle movements of her arm and such yet inwardly she was stranded. "Why do you care?" she said rather scathingly and the spitting tone of her voice startled her.
He walked up to her, getting closer and closer giving her a small smile "I’m curious, maybe I can help. Hard to turn away from one whom is the same as I am." She seemed to pause at this, naturally wary of her own kind given she knew what they were capable of and she was rather...different and yet in ways similar. Her eyes trailed up the length of his body as he came closer, towering over her though she did not yet feel intimidation and a mild curiosity was ignited amidst her sadness. Following the curve of his hood she found again those red eyes, buried within, slid to the rather menacing weapon at his spine then back again. She brushed her hair from her pale face "You feel you must help one of your own?" she answered. She was surprised, as she never felt that way inclined to any other vampire...besides one...one who seemed to forever desert her.
He just continued to watch her closely as he smirked a bit again "Well, if we don’t help each other out, un-life gets rather stale and such, you know? So what is your name?" She wrinkled her nose ever so slightly. That word...un-dead...made her momentarily face that side of herself in thought till she pushed it away. She straightened a little, met his gaze with her own rather more steeled and a strange smile played at her lips "Blaze..." she said simply.
He grinned some at her as his mind would touch hers, moving to see if he can seek out some information about her, personal or otherwise. Whatever she would let him see as he would lean down, trying to catch her gaze in his. "Pleasure to have met you, I am Darius." Looking at him silently for a moment she did not break that gaze. She could feel him creeping into her mind, testing the water so to speak and for all her sins she still felt the thrill as much as she had the last time she made perhaps such a grave mistake "Perhaps...the pleasure is mine" she murmured, her smile curling more sinisterly.
So far successful he continued to work his power on her. He wanted more, he wanted to pick her brain apart and he felt the opening she left. He pushed and pushed, trying to get more and more from her. He pushed so much of himself into her he would threaten to take over if she let it continue. He grinned a bit as he attempts to take from her. Involuntary her eyelashes fluttered slightly then looked away from him. Yet she felt a boiling fury stir so full of conflicting emotions all at once that she made the mistake of looking back, and it was like a cold grip choking her. And yet it felt so...liberating, to let another deal with her feelings so she did not have to.
He smiled some and continued to dig around, going deeper and deeper, trying to figure out her mental state, what was this woman thinking in the back of her mind he wondered. Working to find out her deepest darkest thoughts, he continued. She felt that hold tighten still. It was alluring, darkly decadent even though she could see herself from the outside putting herself in the most foolish of dangers. Truth was Eoin had just left a void in her mind, where she once always felt him there was now a gaping hole, and she craved to fill it with something not to feel the pain of being betrayed by her own, hurt and walked over like she always was. Yet somewhere she imagined Alastair's face if he were to see her this way and it made her open her eyes properly, not the half hooded black lazy pupils which had become fixed on his own..they became brighter with a curious blue hue and fiercer "Stop!" she said in a cracked voice "...please" she took a deep breath and frowned at him, never feeling one mind so strong being a stranger "What are you?" she demanded glaring at him slightly.
He grinned at her as he speaks, but his words are heard more in her mind then through her ears "I am a vampire, but I am old, only second removed from the first. One who is more powerful then you will ever know half-breed, but I can offer you a chance to share in my power and leave behind the weakness that you now have. And in return you will gain power, and I will grant you true control over that void in you"
She watched him in stony silence, but her eyes narrowed...it all sounded so vainly familiar. She focused and her voice carried like an icy hush though her pale lips did not move "I want none of your power...my weaknesses are what keep me from becoming something I despise!" she said, though there was a tremor in her tone, he had caught her weak minded and lonely given Eoin's choice "As tempting as you may think you are...I can still resist you" she answered boldly, hoping she was right. He grinned as he looked into the woman's mind again, trying to pick out the face of the one who she turned, wanting his name and face.
She suddenly felt a rather dark urge to see if he tasted as bitter as he felt, show him what she was capable of and spit it in his face...yet it was a tempting bitterness...was like having the power of that cursed demon in her mind once again. Yet she was on her feet, the image of Eoin flashed in her mind yet she pulled it back in protection as she still loved him as her own "You leave him alone!" she said in a snakelike whisper, tiny beside him but in her anger not noticing.
He let her see himself talking to Eoin, telling him of his clan and the man actually said he liked it and would get back to him, it seemed like he had already met the man she sired and he may just join his clan. He showed her all the images of the encounter. “If you want to be with him, you should re-consider my offer” Yet she would not fall for that image. Though for a split second she wavered in disgust "YOU LIE" she spat and pushed passed him, he made her skin crawl yet in a way she was disgusted to have felt its thrill.
~
She blindly ran to the hill top, overlooking the expanse of the water. She could feel her heart caving. She wished Alastair was here. He was the only one that knew her so well, without any bond of mind or blood he understood the depths of her soul even if they confused him at times. He would comfort her, love her, and understand her...she hoped. Yet she also knew what he would think, that she should have foreseen this...that nothing good came of creating vampires. She let her eyes close, heavy and exhausted with yet another weight upon her, another failed good intention, another betrayal...another abandonment.
To feel connected to Eoin was inescapable, he was part of her...it was not the kind of love that two people began to feel slowly or even head over heels, it was different, not love but an extention of oneself, ingrained from that single act of offering him the gift of immortality, even if he had once sought for more. She had saved his life, against her better judgement and now he regretted it. She felt lost. Darius’s offer swirled in her mind. How many times had she been promised such salvation, twisted and dark? And yet she had not been strong enough to resist it before....long ago.
She slumped to the ground, a fist full of snow was sent in a white arc where it fell to the crashing rocks below. She glimpsed up to the waning sun, a cold sad realisation that even amongst all this pain there was still something deeper...though different. She looked over the expanse of water, the Claw caves in the distance where her daughter lay sleeping, safe and warm...for now. Her arms came about herself and she lowered her eyelids, fresh tears hung then smeared as she buried her head against her knees, knowing Elemmírë would soon be far away. It was for the best, so much danger, ever growing threats it was the most responsible thing she and Alastair could do to send her to live anonymously with a family that would care for and protect her, a life of relative normality...or so they hoped. But that did not stop the heartache, like another limb about to be torn.
She turned her head to the side, gazing towards the snow frosted trees then realised she was trembling. Where was that strong side of her? As usual deserted her when she needed it most. She looked down at her hands, her skin looked fragile somehow. She could see veins prominent and blue just below the surface at her wrist. Without clear thought she lifted it to her lips.
The world went black then suddenly was back again, sprung to life in a blinding light, the wintery scene reflected off the water and the sun higher in the sky. Her cheek was numb, having lain down against the snow. She sat up bewildered; feeling like an hour of her life has slipped past her unaware. She felt dizzy and reached up to touch at her temple. Only then did she see the wound, small but unavoidable, oozing blood which had dried winding a path down to her elbow. With a sinking feeling she looked down, eyes flickered over crimson droplets, frozen in place framed starkly against the white backdrop. It was not much but it was enough to bring a feeling of shame to her cheeks. Will I ever be enough? She thought desperately. Will I always be overlooked?
Stiffly she got to her feet, withdrew her hands into her sleeves and walked slowly and silently towards home.
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