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."

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[insufficientjewel]

Ordinarily, he would never lay hands on a woman. It is deeply engrained in him, that sense of chivalry, that certainty that it would be unforgivable to use his strength against a lady.

But this is no ordinary situation. The hair prickles at the nape of his neck, and he has heard the woman's pleading, seen and smelled the blood - and there are limits to chivalry, surely; there is an end to manners, when there is violence at hand. Violence: it is not a thing with which Francis is well-acquainted, at least not in adulthood, and it is not a thing he has ever sought out; but even so, he knows it when he sees it. If he had any doubt, it is gone when he sees the victim's pallor, the blood that smears her skin and her collar, the blank shock in her wide eyes.

And perhaps, then, it is true what the attacker says. Perhaps this is trouble beyond his reckoning. Certainly, he does not have any real recourse, beyond calling for help: he is tall and well-built, but he is not a fighter, and he knows his folklore well enough that as soon as he sees the blood on her lips and the fangs beneath, his first staggered thought is Not human. She is not human.

Wąpierz. The word floats fully-formed into his mind; followed swiftly by another, Romanian: strigoi. He has read treatises on the creatures, written on his master's behalf a great deal about their lore. Vampires.

They are not real. They cannot be. And yet, here she stands: and what other explanation is there, but that folk-tales roam in the open air? He swallows hard, but does not flinch from her threat; he is careful not to meet her eyes, but looks instead at the crumpled form of the other woman. He must focus on her, he decides. Hers is the life at stake.

"It concerns me." His tone is steady, even if he does not feel it. His hands still grip her arms, and beneath them, he feels none of the warmth of living flesh. "As soon as I saw it, it concerned me. Get back from her!"