Author Topic: Revival  (Read 4050 times)

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Offline The Cedar Witch

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Revival
« on: February 11, 2019, 10:47:16 AM »
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The quiet rumbling of thirst behind the Queen’s teeth was something she, for now, kept at a hard bit--firmly under control.  Feeding would come only after her husband had retired to bed after too much wine, at the gentle mental nudging from his wife.  He had developed a wine problem shortly after their marriage.  Something that would catch up with him sooner or later.

1530 and Odessa was all sly smiles, high chin poses and looking down her nose through her celestial mask as she floated through the room.  Touching guests lightly on the arm in greeting as they entered her home, their blood pulsing hypnotically in her ear. 

Oil paint and dried clay.  This scent piqued the interest of the Hostess.  She could not see the young man’s face as he wandered closer to her, obscured by a long-nosed black mask.  His neck pulsing delectably.  The Queen was enticed.  She floated through the room to meet him, fanged-smile obscured by her golden mask.

“A plague doctor?”  Odessa laughed lightly, eyes pulled to his angled jawline.

The boy jumped, startled, his heartbeat thudding at a quickened tempo.

Delightful.

“Ah, the very sun herself!”  He dipped into a sweeping bow, offering his arm after straightening himself.  Odessa took it, stilling the predator in her throat.  She could feel the human’s blood-heat seeping through the white fabric of his shirt, its scent rushing into her like waves with each beat of his heart.  She would have to find an empty corner soon. 



A creature began to stir beneath the ocean, beneath the sand, away from the deadly touches of the sun.  The creature’s throat, dry and aching with such a ferocity that could be ignored no longer, willed its limbs to move.  First its fingers, moving to scratch at the rocks, shells, and sand--clawing desperate and animal-like--freeing its arms and legs, pushing away the sand above and scrambling toward the surface.  Finally freeing its head, thrashing, looking about wildly, mouth opening and letting forth a terrifying sound beneath the surf.

Eighteen months had passed since Sonya--without warning--went to ground beneath the sea, just offshore.  She had drawn too close to him--much too close--too close to something she willed herself to not name.  Disgustingly she had found herself wanting to share things with him--things she hadn’t shared with anyone, not for quite some time.  She had become altogether too soft, too meek, too eager--she had forgotten who she was.  Unforgivable that she had allowed herself to open as much as she had, leaving her vulnerable to...

To what, exactly?

To being taken advantage of, surely.  As men inevitably do.

She did not feel these things.  She did not ache for a touch, for a glance, for breath against her back and lips against her neck.  No.  Odessa Irena Turkevich did not crave those things.

The burning in her chest did not dissipate, the two of them did not return to the state of normalcy that she had, in vain, hoped for.  Desperate to regain the control, to reclaim that air of nonchalance that had marked her first encounters with the younger vampire, she forced herself closed.  Sonya said not a word to anyone--not Damien or even Nadia.  She vanished suddenly, leaving behind her phone, a fury of incomprehensible writings, and dozens of drawings in charcoal swirling blackness strewn about her home.  To Ground she went, as she had in the past, eagerly into the outstretched arms of bloodless silence.  Ready to gain firm hand over the weakening edges of her mind.  To exert control over the fire in her gut, to turn it to ice.  To strangle this disgusting weakness. 

The Queen of Ice had effectively purged the entire incident from her mind.  There was no room for warm flurries in her chest, wordless exchanges between looks, soft intimate touches. 

He is nothing, he is no one, there is nothing there. NothingnothingnothingnothingnothingnothingNOTHING.

So nothing she became, hardening herself against the tenderness that had begun to bleed out of her.  Her skin, desiccated with the lack of blood, pulled tight around her flesh.  Her throat became raw with ocean and sand.  Crazed eyes, bloodshot and murderously dark, were sunken deep into the skull.  Skin taught around the bones of her face. 

A terror to behold in the moonlight, arising from the sea--

a grotesque Aphrodite

--birthed from the seafoam, seaweed tangled in dark clumps of hair, clad in the tattered remains of her clothing.  Each stiff step forward jerky and chilling, she flinched as her skin came into contact with the unfamiliarity of open air. 

Finally waking from her deep, swirling, freezing hibernation, this creature known as Odessa desperately needed to feed.  She was inflexible and cold as ice, moving up the shore of the beach.  Gaze something terrible to behold, Thirst clawing and her throat, she moved to the first pulse of life she could detect.

(continued here)
Anna/Odessa/Sonya || Astrid || Chtahzus'aak/Zeus || Extasis || Fler || Jeremiah || Laurent/Va'tamal || Malakai || Rachel || Vai
Old things have strange hungers. - Catherynne M. Valente