for insufficientjewel.

[reignfall]

A man's footfalls, light for his size, and coming closer. Were she not dazed with hunger, this would be her sign to flee, to become once more one with the night, gone half a mile before he has so much as a chance at rounding this corner. This hunger is a frightening one, though, it cuts deep and for the first time since she herself was turned, Celeste fears what might come after. If she does not feed, what madness might befall her? If she is so close to losing her senses in the presence of her victim now, what will happen if she flees, if she means to last through another day, to hunt another night? Few are out past curfew these days, and fewer are inclined to invite strangers into their homes past sundown. The woman before her is her safest wager.

And not only because she has already fallen under her spell, having forgotten those pleas for aid and mercy she'd uttered at the first sight of her attacker's fangs. The woman is still now, stiff as a board, and though there is sentience yet flickering behind her eyes, she cannot fight a vampire's might. She almost pities her: it is not, she recalls, a pleasant feeling.

The steps come closer, though, and there is no time to search for humanity in her unbeating heart. Even in life, she would not have chosen it. This may no longer be a question of life and death, but she is seeing double, hearing echoes, and she cannot wait another night, cannot last another scalding day, if she does not do as her nature commands.

She leans forward, then, presses her victim bodily against the wall, buries her fangs in her neck and smells a man's scent so close as though – 

She is grabbed, drawn back, and though her strength by far outdoes that of her opponent, her dazed state is enough to stop her. "This does not concern you," she murmurs, eyes half shut as she means to keep her victim under her control. The woman slides to the ground, rattled by the pain of the bite, and it is more difficult to keep her hypnotised when facing away from her. "Leave this place, good sir, or find yourself in trouble beyond your reckoning."

Comments

[reignfall]

All told, she prefers her men too caught in the bliss of having her in their rooms at all to still consider decency, landladies, wives, and God himself as factors in what is ultimately her equation. That he still thinks to ask – nay, order – silence of her seems to earnestly take her aback, and there is a flash of displeasure marring her otherwise so beautiful features. Even in life, she has not been a creature who oft heard the word 'no', or learned to hear it with any manner of grace and respect at all.

"I do seek to be invited again in the future, and so I shall keep your gentile request in mind." Still, he took her arm, and still, his cheeks are flush as the first red of morning, which seems to mellow the waves of her agitation just a tad. "Do you ever honour her wishes? In life, I would have given much to rent rooms of my own, far from prying eyes, to invite whoever I so please."

It's a teasing, lowly jest so obvious she cannot hold it back. "And whoever so pleases me."

[insufficientjewel]

His flush does not darken, at least - though that may be because there is only so dark it can go. He will not, he decides, justify her lewdness with a response. He learned a long time ago, by instinct as much as experience, that sometimes the best shield against mockery and dishonesty is simply to take all things on their face; at times, he may seem simple for it, but he is not proud enough to mind. The same, he is sure, goes here: he need not acknowledge the undertones of what she says, no matter how unhidden, if he addresses what is explicit.

"I am not a wealthy man, and her rent is reasonable. I would be a fool to jeopardise my lodgings for the sake of fleeting pleasure."

And if she chooses to read deeper into that, to understand that it is not only the roof over his head that he will esteem more highly than carnality, then that is her choice. It is not dishonesty to tell more than one truth at a time.

[reignfall]

Over the years, she has been made familiar with ideas such as rent and how a lack of funds can trouble lesser men and women, though frankly, the wealth that has been made hers by sheer virtue of outliving all her family has sustained her until this day. It won't do to dwell in the same region for too many decades at a time, and the risk of discovery has seen her rent on occasion, though she prefers whole purchases of lands and lodgings, for privacy's sake.

Still, she tilts her head to the side, watching him. "How odd. By the looks of you, I took you for a nobleman's son." The sort of man who never had to worry about upsetting a landlady, someone who only rented to have a space away from a nagging wife or other troublesome relation. A space not to live in, but to use and discard, away from the sort of prying eyes a manor might attract.

[insufficientjewel]

He lets out a low, wry laugh at that. There is something rather reassuring, he finds, in how wide of the mark she is: it is a comfort to know that, at the very least, she cannot read his mind, or know more about him than he tells her. Not that he means to hide or dissemble, now that he has come so far that he cannot turn back, but it is good to know that her power has clear limits.

"Hardly. I am no-one's son at all." A fact whose sting has long since faded into the background, after some thirty years of orphaned life. He wonders, of course, about his parents and what fate brought him to the sisters' doors; there will always be times when, in quiet moments, he finds himself in melancholy search of clues in the scattered remnants of his earliest memories; but in the end, he has come this far with no father but the Heavenly one, and no family but those who took him in. He lengthens his stride a little, but his tone is easy enough. "I hate to disappoint you, but I cannot offer noble blood to slake your thirst. You must settle for a poor clerk's, or else call an end to our agreement."