Might

[The Cedar Witch]

It was shocking even to Storm how withdrawn into herself she had become. Damien disappeared to her, along with everything that had to do with him. And her. There wasn\'t much on her mind besides the woods, which was how it should have been to begin with. She should have been alone to begin with. What was she doing anyway? Wasn\'t she supposed to be running? Hiding? From Him?

The Akari paused where the brook forked, the right veering off into a cliff-side, making it impossible to pass without crossing the water. For a moment she stood, scanning the water and trying to determine the easiest path across. It wasn\'t that wide, and if she tried she might have been able to make it across. But there wasn\'t any room to get a running start. "Shit," Storm uttered, still forgetting that she wasn\'t alone. It wasn\'t as if she could have flown either. The trees were hanging too low. The trees.

With a steady hand, she gripped the bark of a young tree, testing it for strength and measuring the distance to the next one. While keeping one foot on the ground, she stepped to the opposite bank, grasping wildly at the branch that hung tantalizingly close--but still too far. Storm cursed, other foot retreating to the safe side of the bank before she attempted again. Her next try was too rushed, almost as if she was afraid that Damien would try to help her. She was independent enough to fall into the brook without his help, whether or not she was expecting the chill and splash of cold water, yelping in surprise as she gripped desperately at her branch.

[Saiketsu]

His attention was pulled taut again by the sound of splashing water and Storm\'s gasps. Automatically the old, stoic eyes focused through the darkness to see her closer now, but half in the stream she was so anxious to find. She was cursing. Damien sighed, relaxing his body and calming the blood the best he could. The vampire almost called out to her before remembering that she wanted to go into the woods, not go into the woods together.

Hanging back a bit, Damien let her struggle, finding the ability to smile at her curses of being wet and the like. No need to interrupt; God knows she kept enough frustration bottled up.

[The Cedar Witch]

Instead of becoming angry at herself, as she had expected, Storm smiled, laughing as she seemed to get more wet then necessary while she struggled. The branch that she grasped onto slipped into her hand, and she managed to stumble farther into the water; another surprised shriek followed by a string of curses with a tone of voice that didn\'t fit. She wasn\'t angry at all. In fact, she looked back to where Damien was standing, flashing him perhaps the most genuine smile that she had all night.

"Careful over here. It\'s slippery." Her voice was as light as the blue in here eyes as she turned back to her intended path, continuing on through the water. She was wet anyway, so getting across through the water didn\'t matter now. Clambering clumsily over the other side of the bank, the girl gratefully steadied herself on dry(er) ground.

"What the hell," she sighed, the humor still present in her voice. Wet and cold, she waited for him to cross before pressing onward (surely not waiting long at all, considering his supernatural ability). There was still a ways to go before she reached the end.

[Saiketsu]

By the time the vampire came to one side of the stream, the Akari was well on the other side. His feet began their sluggish decnt into the muck and mire of the embankment, but Damien paid no mind. Instead he lifted his foot from the bank and jumped easily over to the other half of the forest, using no tree limbs in the process, his hands tucked safely inside his sweat-shirt pockets.

He would never tell her such, but a significant amount of boredom was overwhelming him. He had never been one to wander through the forests for no reason, finding them too... uninteresting. Damien was always accustomed to life in a house or building or enclosure. He never understood the fascination with trees or forests like others. "What exactly do you like about this place, Storm?" He almost lost his footing on a small hillock. Almost.

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm paused for a second without turning around, as if she couldn\'t think and walk at the same time. She was stuck between replying with an "I don\'t know" and actually trying to explain why she felt so completely comfortable in the forest. The fact that he had even asked her made her feel guilty for dragging him in here in the first place. After all, he probably had his fill of forests within the nine-hundred-or-so-years that he had walked the earth. But he had asked her what she wanted to do, so it wasn\'t like it was completely her fault, was it?

She resumed her walk, thinking now and continuing slower then before. If she had even started to explain, could he understand? Would he understand that the trees not only gave her energy, but some form of comfort, like an impenetrable shield of leaves and branches where judgment could not cross through? Would he understand that there really wasn\'t anywhere else she could go? That there wasn\'t a single place in the city that she could ever feel comfortable because of the swirling chaotic energy that sent her mind into a frenzy trying to build walls again and again to protect herself? Was it even worth it to try explaining? She would end up explaining something wrong, and he wouldn\'t even begin to understand how fascinated she was by these ancient things that reached for the heavens every day of their existence; the trees that saw all, felt all, understood all, and yet said nothing.

"Why, not enjoying yourself? We could go back if you want." The girl said softly, without weight. Really, it didn\'t matter to her. The sooner she was accustomed to the city and the inability to go as she pleased, the better. After all, she was supposed to be obeying him, putting up with discomforts that came with what he wanted her to do. Not the other way around.

With this sudden change in mindset, Storm\'s face darkened, as if everything about the situation came at her again all at once. Why was he catering to her wishes if there were things to be done that were so much more important then this? Why was he letting the tool lead the way? The girl stopped walking and turned to face him, face completely blank.

[Saiketsu]

Before he knew it, he was on top of her, the Akari not ten feet from him. "What are you doing?" Genuine confusion overtook him and broke him from his trails of neverending thought. "I never said I wanted to leave. Did you hear me say that?" Truth be told he was enjoying his time to think away from the reaches of her aura-pulling spirit, where she couldn\'t feel what he was feeling. His boredom was stemming from the trees. Trees trees trees, everywhere for his entire life and after. There were only so many trees he could stand.

"Do you honestly want to leave?" His surprise was plain in his features as he faced the girl with the blank look to her eyes. "You just crossed the muddy banks of the Mississippi and now you just call it quits?"

[The Cedar Witch]

"Never mind," A soft smile that still managed to reach her eyes, "I just didn\'t want to drag you around this place against your will. You don\'t have to come with me, you know." With that said, Storm turned away from him again, as if forgetting that he was even there in the first place. Even if she acted as though she was ignoring him, the company that he provided wasn\'t something that went without enjoyment. Not that she would admit that to anyone, let alone him. But the trees, as always, seemed to capture her attention again, with their already tinting leaves that hung lazily from drooping branches.

[Saiketsu]

"Jees," he was about to say as she turned around, forcing himself to move at a pace much slower than hers in order to put some distance between them, the way he believed they were both enhoying their time in the woods. But the young man decided against it, allowing the comment to echo in his mind along with thoughts of everything else.

Why was she so worried about his boredom level, his happiness? Did she honestly think that the one thing that would make him happy would be escaping these trees? He hoped not. With cautious eyes he watched the Akari wander farther and farther away, watching the curve of her shoulders and the waves in her hair. Another embarassing surge of Thirst arose at the memory of her blood caught in the wind, and his eyes fell to the grasses and foliage on which he thread.

[The Cedar Witch]

There was a root she did not see and a thicket of thorns that caught her before she fell. Another string of curses and a flushed face as she stood, regaining her composure as well as her footing. Storm sighed, glancing to the left at the dark water that ran silently without paying any attention to the one who was seeking where it began. She continued at a quicker pace, something she did to make up for her clumsiness from before. Despite all of the scratches that adorned her exposed flesh, she was enjoying herself. The air was even beginning to smell like fall, even though summer really had just ended. The brook would be frozen over soon, and she made a mental note to return later to see the fragile beauty tucked away in this part of the wood.

After much stumbling into thorn bushes and almost onto the soft, muddy ground, Storm finally stopped at the foot of a steep incline. It was almost like the face of a cliff, or the back of a rocky cave. The brook water trickled from the rocky surface at a slow rate, causing the wall of gray to be slick with water. It was almost like a waterfall, something that would surely be more spectacular in the springtime when all the snow had melted.

 "Finally," she breathed, touching the rock with a wider smile. She could feel the pulse of the water coming from within the rock, something dull and more ancient then any of the trees that she had come in contact with. It was automatic for Storm to tune into this, causing her own heart to match with the rhythm and taking it\'s strength. So she could stay awake later even if she was far away from the forest.

[Saiketsu]

There was a mingling of sounds for a few moments. Something slowed or quickened, but he couldn\'t tell what. Water was clear again, louder this time over the rolling coastline\'s companion. But that sound.

It was her heart and it confounded him completely. She had actually adjusted her heart to match the pulsing of the water source. Damien simply stood there in confusion, listening as well as he could to the newly-adjusted throbbing of the heart. For whatever reason he could tare his mind from it, the pulsing invading his mind more than he would have ever liked to admit, ringing in mixed-up memories of good things throughout his time of knowing Storm: the way she moved, the shift of her eyes to something less forboding, the look of her legs in his apart...

He stopped, sucking in a breath of repentence. There was no way to stop her heartbeat from entering his mind, but biting down on his teeth made the memories fade somewhat, made his struggles as well as his love and devotion for a woman long since dead clearer. One. Two. Just count the thoughts away. Three-four. Five-six. Heart. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten-Eleven. Twelve-thirteen.

It bacame bareable. If he focused enough he could suppress thoughts of her figure, as childish as they were to even have. If he focused, he could think of her as a completely different person than Isabella. If he focused he could just push some of the sound from that beating organ from his mind. If he focused.

Pathetic, he though scoldingly, hate driving a whip against his back internally. To be swayed off his focus by some girl\'s ability to change the rhythm of her heart to meet something so much cleaner than anything alive. Including themselves.

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm turned back to him, for a moment, feeling a flicker pass through the air as she removed her hand from the cool stone. There was something in his expression that she could not read, something that she couldn\'t understand. But as quickly as the change in atmosphere came, it was gone. But she frowned, eyes alight with innocence and forming a question that she did not feel as if she had a right to ask. But she moved away from the water source, her steady heartbeat returning to her original rhythm as it always would after taking energy from any source with a beat.

"We can leave now," she offered softly, smiling slightly as if that would make up for something that had grown awkward in the air if only for a second. "This was all I wanted to find." She did not move closer to him, instead waiting for his response and instruction. It wasn\'t her place to know what he was thinking, but it was apparent that his mind was on something unpleasant. After all, it wasn\'t as if she told him everything she was thinking at every waking moment. Each demon to his own.

[Saiketsu]

Fade. It faded, everything. Every thought he needed to have gone, every sensation of falling apart, every weakness for women he had always had. Her pulse returned and so did his expression after a moment of awkward and expressionless silence. "We don\'t have to leave, you know. If you wanted to stay we could. Honestly I don\'t mind. I\'ve actually become accustomed to the lack of salty fish smell here." He could even pull up a smile.

The sunrise wasn\'t for hours, so he had no reason to rush to get... well, anywhere, really. The only places open at this time of night would be dance clubs, restaraunts and his apartment, none of which he was eager to see just yet. So besides his being leery of her abilities to change the course of her life impulses, Damien was perfectly fine where he was.

[The Cedar Witch]

"Well, don\'t expect me to do anything entertaining." she smiled genuinely, feeling safer to do so in the forest. As if it wouldn\'t even matter if he did judge her. With that said, Storm walked closer to the water\'s edge, sitting on a nearby rock. Slowly she reached downward, pressing her hand against the cool liquid black until the water reached halfway up her arm. It was almost shocking how quickly her arm became numb, and she was entranced by the feeling of nothingness that her arm seemed to sink into.

The fact that she could not visit this place alone as often as she would have preferred did not cross her mind. The cool chill that now possessed her body seemed to carry her to a level of meditation that allowed her to detach from everything that swarmed her mind in the beginning of the night. Time wasn\'t a tangible thing, and for once Storm felt peace in the silence that passed between the two. It wasn\'t awkward; it was something more like a breath of fresh air. Her blood tuned in again to the river as she became more unaware of her surroundings. The deeper she fell into this trance, the longer she could go without sleep. And the river itself provided a drug-like numbness that seemed to wash away things that she didn\'t feel like thinking about. Yes, like a breath of fresh air.

[Saiketsu]

He enjoyed the smile and gave her one of his own. Minutes passed before Damien moved towards her, listening to her adjusted heartbeat, fighting his demons of thought. He took a seat next to her on a similar-looking rock, far enough away to avoid any part of her out-stretched aura.

He couldn\'t tell how much time was passing, the winds gaining strength and the sky darkening. The vampire gazed around at a loss of what to say. "So. What now?"

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm jumped at the sound of his voice, almost falling from the rock. Her face was flushed unreasonably and she looked at him quickly, hair fluttering around her face. "What? Oh," The tension she had accumulated through the sudden start melted away, leaving an uneasy yet still present smile. She turned from him again, eyes still locked on the water.

"I don\'t know. I could sit here all night, but I doubt you\'d have that kind of patience." there was a lightness in her voice that had never been there before, and it was stranger still that she found herself smiling so easily. "And it\'s not like I have anything else to tell you, unless there was something else about me that you wanted to know." despite the serious nature of the comment, there wasn\'t anything heavy about her voice. She was really just talking, for once, without attachment.