Work Text:
1.
AT DUSK I ARRIVED ON THE DUSTY BANK of what used to be a pond, of whom water had dried out for so long that deep-dark cracks were painted all over the chapped, brown soil. Those lines creeped beneath my feet and spreaded like a gigantic spider web, a magnified version of which only the highly poisonous ones, the predators living in the middle of an Arizona wetland, might be capable of producing so as to lure their prey into a sweetened nightmare. Those lines creeped towards the shadow of the leaf canopy, where they dodged the spiky roots and blended in under the lustful high grass.
They hid in utter silence, and for every second waltzing through, silence grew into something deafening. The scorching sunlights glided along the rough branches, bounced among the fresh leaves and landed on the blade of grass, where a few drops of dew stubbornly gripped on regardless the force of nature. Foliage folded like a maternal figure protecting the yet fully-bloomed flowers, layers upon layers, leaves upon leaves.
Movements of light reflected a spectrum of green tones, ranging from a nearly-pastel green to a navy one to - where sunlights could hardly reach - a downright inky black (the colour which I had always assumed as the downfall of all colours, therefore, should be treated with speciality).
For a moment, the performance of colours reminded me of the green land once lying at the end of my ragging village, just a thirty-minute walk from my old house. The Fooly-Forest, named by the kids once they found out it was not a real one, but more of a hill where adults had planted some tropical seeds having been bought from a crossing dealer some years ago.
The ceaseless attempt to utilise the newly discovered seedlings, unfortunately, had never concluded in actual success. Tiny dots of pinkish flowers withered and muddled into the background as soon as the first signs of winter emerged, and never did they yield any fruit before the last leaves turned to dust and the whole universe settled into their annual hibernation. For no particular reason, the dying green kept playing back in my mind once in a while, like a mental habit I had taken in somewhere between staying a child and growing into a young lady.
And the young lady it was for eternity.
Among the howling winds and the crackling sounds of life blooming in early spring, I caught the faintest smell of what seemed to be human. From just several miles away planted the city of Houston, one of the most desirable hunting grounds in Southern America. And for lords above, the humans there stank, immediately, of fresh blood drumbling in their veins, of fragrances they sprayed on their skin, of the food they had eaten for the night, and of the razor of death hanging upon their delicate necks. All of which were so strong that it nearly covered the sense of nature. It made me want to vomit, supposing that I was still capable of such things.
Yet at the same time, embarrassing as it seemed, the appalling combination of odours caught me off guard. They crawled into my nostrils, and it was just a matter of milliseconds before they made their way to my lungs, in spite of my attempt to stop breathing instantly.
And it burned.
Lifetime ago, the sense had been like that of being stung by a wasp before the poison diffused in the bloodstream and plunged into the centre of an unbeating heart; It had been like to be exposed on a blue flame without any shield or prevention, from head to toes the paralyzing sense brushed through, blinding any form of morality or consciousness was left from a mortal life. It drown me in gleams of white, and for countless times, I had woke up only to see a snapped human head in hands, my teeth painted in a velvet, sickening shade of red that managed to soothe the whining ache in my venomous mouth but not in my sinful soul.
The pain had been jolting itself into my life for year after year; days dripped like plain sand in an endless, enormous hourglass, blurring into my customarily volatile routines yet never really stopped wiggling. Until one day, it simply dawned on me that the agony had somehow faded into a tune, an everlasting song humming in my head that was one of the only assurances for my ever existence on Earth.
After all that time, the impulse of blood had loosen its control on my being, like a snake found its prisoner was still edible but had no longer been the favourite. Yet it would never set me free, as the selfish and noxious nature of such species could never stop it from haunting me even in my wildest dream. I kept the observation for myself, as pointing it out would only result in more influence of the devil.
However, never did I admit the tune was something pleasant, more of a bearable presence as it brought out the dryness of my throat and the roam of venom in my mouth, yet I was still able to retain myself from sinking into unconsciousness and surrendering to the wicked urge under my skin.
My breath hitched while I struggled to prevent myself from fleeing to the nearby residential area for a stack of fresh blood. Such a miserable soldier was I to have dedicated my whole two weeks for a mission I had far since known would only result in total failure. Hardly would I consider myself as an adequate teacher or an eligible trainer, particularly in dealing with a half dozen of newborns whose eyes were still raw with bloodlust. So I took a step back, and was filled with the task to escort Maria the following minute, which led me to set foot in this typical Texan forest, with a heart yearning for food but a head still vigilant enough to wait for the arrival of my commander.
The boiling sun was half settled behind the trees when I decided to follow the cracked lines to their hiding spot beneath the shade. The warmth melted like butter on my marble-like skin, soft orange-ish lights reflected in shimmering scattered fragments, just like that of the precious kaleidoscope my brother had brought back from his journey to England in the summer of 1818.
The forest, this was a qualified one, remained in utter silence as I moved toward. There was no rustle of leaves, no squeaking of squirrels or chirping of birds. Underneath my feet, the ground smelled of rotten organic composure mixing with the haziness of frost. Things were apparently still under the impact of the previous winter, whose temperature dropped to such an extreme that, in my opinion, was enough to be the death of a number of impoverished families.
There, I made my way to the large branch above just by some movements of swinging and climbing, leaves were crushed in my right palm as I grabbed a twig and pulled myself up. It was a peculiar feeling hiding in the middle of greenery, clinging to a false hope that fresh scents of spring could abate the burning sensation growling in my chest.
The branch quivered under my weight, sending minute vibrations to the foliage above. In the flight of my head, a pool of petals swirled back and forth, its colour strikingly resembled that of the playbacks in my mind. Some landed on the crook of my dress and slid down my ankles before continuing their journey to reunite with earth. They were so soft, so fragile that I almost felt a shot of guilt eyeing their pinkish glow being muffled by dust.
So instead I closed my eyes. The colour behind my eyelids faded like dandelion seeds spreading on a wild meadow, where the winds were not quite ferocious, but managed to smash those petite white dots into powder anyway. It fluttered under the dim light of a cloudy morning, rose and fell with the streams of air, before it withered and vanished into nothing.
And when the last rays of sunlight retreated from the ground, I let myself be consumed by total darkness.
Maria arrived as soon as the first glimpse of the gibbous moon bursted through layers of grey clouds hanging worriedly across the horizon, her two new allies in tow. Between the leaves, she stood small, stunningly beautiful as the moonlight dripped off her wild, dark curls in pills of silvery dust, and it reflected from her eyes an unmistakable shade of ruby while her other features were hidden under her cape. The brunette smelled of the road she had rushed through, of the dirt and wind, of flowers and humid weather, and of the human blood I reckoned she had just inhaled merely an hour ago. It was perceptible that the victim was a young lady, whose age ranged from twenty to early thirty, since I could still hear her jasmine fragrance lingered in the atmosphere.
They landed on the very destination I had arrived at, right on the bank of the dried pond, their boots stained with mud and grime. The three female figures stood still, the ends of their cape were caught in the rising gust which managed to wash away the nauseous odours in a fraction of second, just for letting them reappear in a clearer and more distinctive manner.
I remained hidden in my newfound quarter, uninterested in revealing my existence. It was like the lack of blood in my parched veins had started creeping upon my head, drifting me into a sluggish state of mind which allowed me to adopt a few rebellious little acts against my second life's mother. I was indeed starving, and the urge for blood had reshaped into a fury that drizzled out in some form of passive-aggressiveness.
From afar, I heard a booming of thunder. Flashes of light sprawled across the grey canvas above my head in shapes of sinuous roots, painting my eyesight with its fascinatingly dazzling flare. Upon the trees, startled birds flapped their wings, some shot up and blended with the murky darkness of the sky. The tree I was sitting on churned with the sudden movement of nature, some green and pink pieces swifted their way to my tights, just for me to promptly shake them onto the ground. It took awhile for the surroundings to return to its usual serenity.
In the end, it was the taller blonde who broke the solid silence (her name, as I had later been informed, was Lucy).
"Gãrcia, don't you wellcome us?" she chirped.
Her voice pierced through the bleakness of air like a chiming bell, an angelic combination of loveliness and delicacy. It flowed like a symphony, the one often heard from a harp in churches every Sunday morning, promoting a sense of holiness radiating in the ears of the mortals.
"We have gone a long, long way just to meet you."
Her sweetened sound echoed among the trunks and dissolved into the night. She was tall and lean, her shadow engraved on the ground like a banshee in its cloak.
I did not move.
Winds rose in a rustling sound before she pressed, "Hide and seek's not a choice here."
Not until Maria spoke up that some common sense finally snapped back to me. It was only a murmur, a ghostly shadow of her vigorous strength displayed in the form of a ringing melody, composed only by a couple of notes.
She whispered, "Come here,"
"Mi cariño."
Her words, in a blink of an eye, stretched my nerves. For a moment, I found my unfunctional heart clenched and the unpredicted worry immediately pulled me back from crossing the line between being sane and insane. For long I had acknowledged the nature of this incredibly thin line, so frail that just one second of self-indulgence would result in the broken of a sound mind. So that was it, Maria was growing impatient.
My worry was then amplified by her action; she stepped up, arms wide opened, as if she was embracing the air. Under the bleary moonlight, bite scars glowing like tiny medals hanged loose around her elegant neck, trailed along her collarbone and disappeared under her yellow corset. It caused a shrill to travel down my backbone, a sense of fright bloomed and spreaded like a tumultuous storm that struck to the very core of my tattered shell.
Before I realised it, my legs had gotten me flying through the ground with such fierceful force that could instantly send a human-being to heaven. My hair flustered behind my back, some red locks whipped my cheeks, blocking a part of my vision as I glided into the arms of Maria. Beneath my feet, leaves crumbled in muffled crackles, my footprints etched several inches deep and acted as nucleus for the soil cracked into webs around them; such distinctive cues of the traverse of a monster.
I wondered what ideas the hunters would have come up once they crossed those traces early in the morning. A bear, maybe, with deformed paws shaped similarly to the sole of human leather boots.
The hug of Maria, on the other hand, was cold, callous and brought about a familiarly threatening feeling that made my muscles tense in responsive as I buried my face in her chest. It collided with the upper half of the corsettte, where a once-beating heart lay perfectly still in the centre of her redundant circulation. Above my head, I heard her chuckle.
I blurted out, "Maria." the sound squirmed like it was from an animal caught in a hunter's trap with the knowledge of death awaiting. My feet started to waggle, crushing whatever they found under the shoe tips.
The space between Maria's extended arms was never too big for my petite figure, yet it did feel too small to not strangle the innocent girl within me whose existence I could barely recognise. In my mind eye, the girl's hair had burned like fire under the scorching sunlight, reaching an extent at which its shade began to unify with that of the liquid rumbling in her pulses. Following the drain of blood once she had been turned, the sun hovering upon her infant valley had submerged and shadows swallowed her colours bit by bit, like acid licking the surface of a metal bar, until what remained was just the flicker of a once shining spirit.
As Maria shuffled for a more comfortable posture, I felt her fingers brushed through my auburn locks, sending another shiver down my bones. It was frightening, the way her gestures towards her kids seemed so maternal yet every touch screamed the word 'cold-blooded', slinking like a phantom under one's skin and paving its own way to one's mind before putting the whole body under its horrific manipulation. It triggered a system of fight-or-flight out of nowhere and in no time, and the ones who commited to the itch of fighting, I had no intention to learn more about them.
"So tell me, my dear, did you eat?"
Well, maybe that was the point. I did not eat. Yet.
2.
MY BROTHER, MARIUS, WAS THE BLACK SHEEP of the family, the one who was brave enough to embrace the world beyond the wooden fence of our tiny village. He left home when he was sixteen, following the persistent call pounding in his chest as he flew into an opening sky, never once returning after decades of being a vagrant. He had been a news reporter, he had been a sailor, he had been a dealer. He worked as hard as he could, he flew as high as he wanted. He used to be employed in a bakery, a restaurant, and a post office. Once in a while, he would stop for adventures and money and lifetime opportunities. Or at least those were what he had claimed in his annual letters.
Truth to be told, I had never met Marius before the age of fifteen, when he went home and, strangely enough, settled down.
It was a sweltering summer day, not long after his return, that I found the miniature collection he had got from the journey lying at the end of an old drawer. There was no more than a few minute stuffs; some appeared as refined as creations of artwork, the others were scratched and scattered, like something he would incidentally take in along the way. It mounted up like a small dune, covered under layers of dust. In the bottom curled a blue ball of something appeared to be a uniform.
The air in the house smelt like a greasy mixture of dirt, putrid meat and spoiled vegetables, mingling with a whiff of animal blood from Marius' previous hunting affair. Behind the cottage, my brother was chopping wood, pieces of timber lay in absolute disorder around his feet. The anosmia of firewood rushed through my nose before smudging into the humid mid air as I reluctantly dug the cloth out. The blue fabric was crisp under my fingers, layers of caked grey dirt fluttered once I pulled the blue thing out of the dark.
As I called out to him for permission to clean off his souvenirs, the first reply was a sharp clang of metal falling upon harsh ground. The mid-sized axe was flung out in a rush while my brother dashed through the doorway. The feverish heat trailed after him like a puppy followed its master, except it was not, so it dissolved and contributed to the thickness of the air.
He cried. "How did you find it?"
The floor rumbled beneath my brother's footsteps. He smelt of sweat, of the wood he had been slicing. The odours reminded me about father's, but more vague since it had been partially concealed by his signature salty sense. The salty smell was so viscous it started to replace him in my wobbled memory after a course of a lifetime.
Long after, I knew it was the smell of the ocean.
O-c-e-a-n. In my mind, it was the sky reflected on earth in a deeper shade of blue. It was wind and cloud muffled together, melting like ice under a sunny day until there was nothing except a vast, glittering pool of blue liquor where the continuous movements of waves made it appear volatile. But I knew, beneath this seemingly dangerous shell lay a different world. It was a peaceful kingdom of fishes and corals and octopuses and seaweeds, an absolute mystery that many seek to discover. I had always long to witness an ocean myself, for such beauty cannot be fully appreciated through means of black and white sketches in books.
Yet back into the time, brother was to me a more detailed and figurative image of ocean than the ocean itself.
The man had always been a secretive person; he came home as a typical gentleman, calm and well-mannered, never a vulgar word, never a discourteous gesture. It got to an extend he was seemingly emotionless sometimes, like a machine kept doing whatever it was made to do without any excess thoughts or sentiments.
This came with the cost of me not understanding him at all. I knew him. He was my brother. I lived with him. He raised me after the death of our father. But to understand the heart of a man was as easy as to interpret the mood of a woman. It was more than 'see' and 'know', since an undecipherable maze remained undecipherable until the guard led us to where the key laid, far from the praying eyes of mortals.
Still when he saw the blue fabric on my hand, he stiffened on spot, his tanned complexion turned pale and he stared blankly at the thing like he had never expected it to be there.
And then he splashed into the room. His mouth opened and closed, spilling words and phrases I had never heard in my entire mortal life. Rough was likely an understatement; They were horrific. Barbaric, even. The words felt like something would come from a thief, a pirate, a madman living among other wretched beings, but not from my brother. My brother.
The event could have occurred in a more subtle way, yet I figured out the blazing lights that day were so powerful it might literally invade one's mind and ignite on one's tongue like fire, a concise description of how Marius had reacted to the unintentional unearthing of his belongings. His rage came as swiftly as a forceful gale, the one dancing with the billowing waves on the ocean surface in a stormy night.
I was frozen when he snatched the cloth off my hand. His words slapped my face and left a mark which then burned with humiliation and embarrassment. I believed I had yet done something, anything, too inappropriate to deserve those insults of his. It was beyond my youngself's endurance.
So I did nothing. An utter nothing. When I should have had as the light blue cloth was rented in twain, and there was a short pause before he rented it in another twain. In the blinding light of such noon, I thought I had seen tears trickling down his bony cheeks. He left and did not return before the sun was down.
The year was 1819. Two year after the start of the war they named the Third Anglo-Maratha War. One year after which my brother came home, a bleak arrow scar etched on his left cheek.
It was also the first time I saw a military uniform, and despite my disappointment, I was convinced that it would be my last. Us vampires worked with different mechanisms to humans, and a vampiric army demanded nothing but fear to process. While humans struggled to identify their comrades by clothes and accessories, we relied on our animalistic instinct to judge, despite some small alterations in my case as I was gifted with such smell.
I did not have the chance to witness another blue uniform until that fateful night in the forest decades after.
I had located it the very second it turned up in the forest. More accurately, I had smelled he was coming. He was riding a stallion, a very fine one with forelocks of rinsing soap and harness of newly manufactured leather. As the beast went flying through the night, fresh blood flowed under its skin like a rhythm of vitality, which was, to be honest, quite pleasing.
However, those odours were nothing in comparison to his. His smell. It struck my head like an earthquake struck a poorly constructed building, sending every part of me collapsing to the ground with its first wave. It was the presence of spring itself, a tender mixture of blue and white and life that moved me more than anything I had ever known before. It was the call of hummingbirds among flowerbeds. It was the hum of waves crashing on land. It was dusk. It was dawn. It was love.
I went rigid in the arms of Maria.
From a distance above, I heard her mellow voice. "Mi cariño, did you eat?"
The sound burbled as if it had been travelling under water. The brunette had repeated her words twice, an explicit implication of her impatience. They blasted through my eardrum a ring of an alarm bell, yet the venom bubbling in my throat had prevented me from coming up with a decent reply. I knew none of her motives to question such a thing, as she was the one who had commanded me to be in position for two weeks straight.
However, I wanted her to worry not, for I had found it. "He's there." He was the one. My perfect meal.
I spurted out of Maria's embrace just for a sudden pain to generate through my left elbow as she tugged it back. My body shot up her breast case in an awkward angle, and the force yanked my legs nearly crumpled earth. On the afterthought, I was glad she had done it, stopping me from my worst introduction ever.
Her question came in a soft hush. "He?" and she saw the eager gleams of my soul. "Oh, of course. Look at you my dear, so impatient already,"
"You are to behave yourself, mi cariño, and then I--we will see."
She looked back at the two vampires, a melodious soprano sprang free from her lovely lips.
"Right?"
The others seemed genuinely confused. Their troubled looks bounced on my nerves and pushed the amount of venom to an unendurable level. Their obliviousness to my ability screamed through the air like an animal demanded to die. As our potential allies, Maria must have at least informed them of my condition. They were wasting my time. The smell was moving this way.
I cursed under my breath.
I knew it was foolish letting the bloodlust crawl like vines and hover up my consciousness. I knew it was a mistake to dwell on this torturous hunger and lost my mind at the forefront of Maria, for she would not permit me to commit to my desire. Yes, my desire. The urge was not foreign, as she had utilised it countless times to recruit her newborns army. But dare I say it was peculiar this time, since I had yet felt such an intimidating bond in my life.
"Her nose," she snorted, still an attractive sound regardless, "has been quite helpful. She can sniff, and sometimes she sniffs out the gifted ones, remember? If their blood's compelling enough, Gãrcia would be able to point them out even if they're in a puddle of humans. Extremely gorgeous, isn't it?"
I nodded unwillingly. "It's Elle, Maria."
"Right, Gãrcia," She blinked and strained me forward, "we should find your 'baby' before they could flee away like last time, don't you think?"
Well, yes, of course.
The last person who had drawn my attention was a cranky, broken woman who had been wandering around our old mansion at night. I had no idea why she was on the street in such a presumably freezing snow shower. Perhaps the upper town's asylum had intentionally forgotten some residents for it could no longer afford their food.
Still, under layers of her cheap cologne slipped out a sweet, honeyed smell of blood, which was more delightful than the others' yet not captivating enough to be 'the seeds'. Despite her miserable appearance, I had invited her to join us for the next dinner. My initial intention was to please her appetite before introducing her to my subordinates. Surely, she would love the food, and they would love the charming girl.
However, the plan had ended in tragedy as I found her lifeless body lying bare in the dark lane six blocks from our place. She was strangled to death. Her body was bruised and swollen. Several steps forward revealed her tattered dress, which had already been discarded in the muddy water. The scene was distasteful, to say the least.
It took me a night and a half to finally plunge my teeth in the hot, wet pulses of the culprits. Revenge was an inappropriate proclamation, for I had lived an iniquitous life where I had been sentenced for the out of countless innocents' lights. The blood coated my hand had long exiled me from the naiveness of mortality; it built me a wall behind which I could hide from all blessings a normal life had once rendered me.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of a defined female, it should somehow put my soul at ease to see the existence of such delinquents were wiped out.
I did not regret.
As we proceeded through the forest, I caught myself hoping that this affair would not conclude in another heartbreak.
-----------
To support our cover, Maria insisted on stopping and walking to the boy like actual human beings. In all honesty, the concealment was so poorly crafted it surprised me when the others obliged without a blink of an eye. On my side, I believed this was not our best move, since it was already suspicious to see four exquisite, unarmed ladies strolling in a forest at night without any male escort aside. Should walking lessen a normal human's suspicious? What if he was a cautious little thing who could sense the danger, who could sense us?
Maybe I was just paranoid. Maybe I had underestimated our beauty, the core of our hunting strategy. But I could not risk it, for one single mistake might immediately scare off the meal. On the other hand, the dreary moon along with the pure, odorous smell of earth, indicating there was no human around, had assured me this hunt would be relatively safe. And safety was all I preferred for things to go swiftly and uncomplicatedly.
So why the need to hide?
For the Lord's above, we were in the middle of a forest, not a festival.
Despite my mental displeasure, my physical shell followed Maria suit. The way I had been blindly tailing her made me feel despicable sometimes, for it reminded me of the inconsequential life I had chosen to live with was sewn by nothing but my own cowardice.
It was like I had been walking upon a wooden beam in a wild night with winds howling by my ears and murky water roaring beneath my feet. Lightning strokes connected heaven and hell, building on the whirling sky a sinuous track leading the stars clashing upon the ground. And the wind had kept me moving. It whispered to me there was no way around, and darkness would swallow me whole once I stopped to look back. I knew the water was screaming to me, too, that I could just jump and free myself from this tormenting journey.
But that was the route for a hero, someone so brave and bright he would survive the consequences of the action. Not me. Not someone whose life was forever buried under the dead-dark well of an presumably antagonistic world, where sunlight was viewed through a thin layer of glass, transparent yet from diamond it were made. Unbreakable.
So instead, I kept walking, like I always did.
Soles ascended on the lone track while rows of trees went to the back of my eyesight and woven into the night. Under the moonlight which had then escaped the grasp of clouds, upon the bushes, amid the thorns, I noticed the berries came in royal purple and blue, colours deep and rich enough to blend into the night.
I tried to distract myself, imagining the blueberry melted upon the tip of my tongue like syrup. It was a stupid attempt, for I had yet tasted anything other than blood for years. There was, however, a strange yet watery sweetness formed at the back of my mouth. At first, it was like that of the blueberry pie in my memory, of which the recipe, as my brother had claimed, originated from a renowned cook in the North. But they were fading then, those shimmering sweetening pieces, and so could no longer be sensed. Instead, slowly, methodically, something else began to surface. And it was familiar.
It was rusted, a taste which had dominated my existence for half a century.
It was foul, stank like the presence of death itself.
And then, I knew, I just knew, that its colour was red.
Red.
My chest heaved. I opened my eyes to see my left wrist was twisting in the clasp of Maria, where her palm was so cold that the sense crept like a serpent against my skin, yet had somehow managed to wake me up from the shallow hallucination.
Was I just about to clarify myself and put an end to her gesture when the three ladies stopped walking abruptly. Maria's hand separated from mine and upon her lips bloomed a charming smile enough to send any man on his knees. Behind my back, I heard Nettie and Lucy's clothes muffled as they exchanged something under their breath. Likewise, they were preparing for the hunt.
The hunt.
Slowly, I turned my head.
Behind the trees, too far for the mortal's to see but near enough for my vision to capture, there he rode, heading toward us. The dim moonlight traced the brim of his hat and sprinkled on the tips of his golden curls like fairy dust. His eyes were painted in a shade of brilliant green, which under the performance of light and shadow shifting slightly to sea-green, before I found it turned quite alike to that of my brother, a colour of deep blue sky. Underneath them came a straight, graceful Grecian nose and pursed lips which formed a stern expression.
He looked... noble. Handsomely so. And there was his outfit, a blue, well-tailored, military uniform. Along his gilt bell, a long sword dangled in its silver-plated scabbard. A five-pointed star shone brightly on his collar.
At first, I did not quite recognize his background. I could not even realise his suit was made for military purposes. Maybe it's darker blue had betrayed me, or my memory had gotten more hazy than I dare to admit. Maria, on the other hand, might have deduced it quite soon, therefore dropping her charismatic mask immediately. Her thoughts were easy to comprehend, for she had recently expressed her longing for newborns whose initial strength and skills could benefit the army. She had been seeking fierce and resilient candidates, the potential knights who could assist her in winning back her throne. To much of my dread, this military boy fit in perfectly.
Obviously, the young man was unaware of my concern as he deliberately guided the stallion to our direction. The beast twitched its ears and stumbled on its feet while moving forward. A few feet from us, it refused to obey his lead, so he dismounted himself and ducked his head like a real gentleman he was.
"Is there anything I could help you with, ma'am?" He blinked, "I--I mean, it's late, and we might agree the forest's very dangerous to travel alone."
His voice was low, but gentle. There was a genuine worry threaded with his words, which then bred a sense of irony in me. For as long as my second life progressed, no human had conveyed anything that delightful to me. There had been lust, there had been envy, there had been terror but never once it was concern. I wanted to burst into laughter at the deer which was mulling over the wolves with such aching tenderness it was seemingly alien.
When the boy did not get a reply, he moved forward and once he caught sight of our faces, he was stupefied. How unimpressed it was to see his eyes widen and his heart began thumping furiously in his chest. Maybe, I thought, I had given him more credit than I should have then. The bewilderment had caught him off-balance, which would probably contribute to his early death later. Under our gazes, he swallowed nervously.
It was Lucy who took the lead.
"He's speechless," she sang, her face glowed in childish amusement.
Adjacent to her, Nettie leaned toward with half-closed eyes, her fair locks worn loose on her shoulder as she took a deep inhale.
"Hmm," she sighed. "Lovely."
The blonde's muscles tensed under the impact of human blood. Reddish brown eyes flickered, indicating that she had not been eating for some time. Her intimation rattled like a snake setting for its conquest, which generated a sense of irritation down my veins.
Maria might have caught Nettie's intention, so she advanced and put her hand over the blonde's arm.
She spoke sharply, "Concentrate, Nettie."
At that time, the boy had escaped the immortal's bewitchment and was observing our appearance. In spite of his still-rumbling heart, his soldier instinct had slowly taken place. His eyes flickered from the blades to Maria, and then to me as if he was judging something.
"He looks right - young, strong, an officer..." she continued. She looked at the young man with such intensity that I knew was fuelled by rage and revenge. In people - army materials - like him, she saw the hope for her vengeance sparkled like light at the end of a dark tunnel.
Maria paused, then her crimson eyes locked with mine.
"And there was something more... Do you sense it?" she asked the other two, "Gãrcia's right. He's... compelling,"
"Oh, yes," Nettie hastily agreed, leaning toward the man again.
Up until then, I had found Nettie was a very fine ally indeed. She had not been as chattering as Lucy, but deep down I saw a heart burned with ambition and determination. She could be a fox, the one you might consider as untrustworthy to befriend with but would undoubtedly come in handy on the battlefield. Her potential could have made her an indispensable asset to Maria. I knew it too well.
"Step back," I hissed, miserably accepting I had started a fight, "you don't touch him!"
It was strange of me to pronounce my demand out loud.
Nettie frowned. Under the lacy eyelashes, I saw her reddish pupils dilated as their colour blackened to that of the night behind me. She looked quite taken aback by my sudden outburst, but then her angelic face heated up in anger.
Before the girl could come up with a verbal declaration of war herself, however, Maria interjected.
"Patient, mi cariño," her other hand pressed my arm while she turned to the blonde, "and you too, Nettie. It's not time to fuss around."
"Now, I want to keep him,"
The words loomed over my rage like ice on the winter river, dulling any heat remaining from my ravenous hunger. Proposing that piercing blue ice cracked into shimmering pointed fragments, the freezing water would flood out and drown me into my most daunting nightmares. Her words were all it took for my blood, supposed that any still remained, ran cold. Instinctively, I closed my eyes and backed off. For the sake of my being, I shall not defy her order. For the light of my frayed life, I shall comply with whatever she demands. Those beliefs (by the lack of better words) had been keeping me alive for a decent amount of time, which was admittedly not quite long should it be in comparison with the lifespan of Maria, but it was absolutely longer than most of the army recruits'.
As insane as my mind could go, never would I permit myself to plunge into the grip of Death so willingly, particularly for the sake of an ordinary prey like him.
Some time after, I heard Nettie retreated. She gulped loudly.
"You'd better do it, Maria," Lucy chimed in, her voice was such a cheery melody, "if he's important to you. I killed them twice as I often keep them."
"Yes, I'll do it," Maria nodded. "I really do like this one. Take Nettie and Gãrcia away, will you?" then her gaze averted to me, "Feed yourselves. I don't want to have to protect my back while I'm trying to focus."
The words were as blunt for our new allies as it were confusing for the young officer. He voiced none of his questions, but I could see the puzzlement radiating from his very much beautiful eyes. His shoulder stiffened and his fingers wiggled slightly. I dearly wished it was his heart urging him to grasp the sword hilt and ready to defend himself. Should those odd behaviours knock some sense back to him would I know he had a chance. Not that I mentioned his escape, as humans stood no earthly against our creatures, but he could have a chance to be conscious about his upcoming faith.
During the time I kept Maria company, I had witnessed so many innocents being pitched in this volatile world with nothing but sheer confusion in tow. And confusion turned to a sense of loss as it remained inside them, grasping their veins and lurking at the back of their mind, until the very moment their eyes could no longer gazing up the stars, their legs could no longer dashing on the ground, and their lungs stopped being tortured by the constant hunger which lingered even in moments their pulses were bursting with fresh, hot blood, that the freedom found them under the form of death.
Death. Such a beautiful word it was. Would it make more sense to just dive into this void and stopped the torturous life I have been suffering all these decades?
The second I heard the smell of his blood, the world screamed "no".
"Let's hunt," after mere seconds of thinking, Nettie agreed enthusiastically, reaching for the taller girl's hand. I thought she had considered taking my hand as well, but she only glared at it before wheeling away. The two blondes swayed in the rising wind, their red and yellow skirts fluttered like butterflies catching the first breeze of spring while they fled into the wild. The girls looked so carefree as they danced towards the buzzling city, floral and plants wavered along their footsteps. Before their shadows went blurred behind the bushy trees, I heard Lucy whisper, "Don't we take her too?" and Nettie's grunt was all that answered.