Generous woman. She’s given me my dinner, so thank her. Do it. Get down and pledge loyalty right on your knees. You’ve a talent for that, haven’t you? Kneeling to stronger things. Better things. And knowing your place, knowing it’s beneath me. Her. Things like us.
Cường skulks through the winter dusk. His desires gnaw deeply about that throbbing thing in his chest, the full moon’s bleed–fat and bloated now, silver in the receding veil of a goldening sky–and its effects seize his marrow like storm: his aches flair, and the volume of His hunger, beastly and insatiable both, crowd his thoughts like its mouth with fangs. Or insults. Words more jeer and needling derision.
Right. It is the night. It is the night for deathly things, the ghosts in the meadows and those things that send them. Cường knows. His visions burst noisier when the shifting nears, flirting on that fragile, precarious edge until even the quick of his nails whiten with pain, and so, at last! Here he’s come. Here, upon the playground of a serpent. Snake. A hungry woman.
Oh. Her victim’s warm, still. They bleed thinly over the twinkle of fresh snow, hair fussed with wind and struggle, and their eyes loll aimlessly, jaw hanging loosely and all death-slack. Heat’s trembling off the body’s skin, and he thinks of doused coal and extinguished fires. Apt.
“I don’t understand. I don’t, don’t know why you’d chase the cold so longly here, here where the snow already falls and the lakes chirp frozen. Nipping. Biting.”
His footsteps stop. A vacant breeze titters through the treetops, and Cường, some strange flavor bordering understanding, looks blandly toward her. Dusk wanes. Her dead air howls. Blood dribbles near her feet, staining a stubborn sprig of dandelion, and his fingers pick idly at his uppermost button. “You make my teeth chatter, you know. You do.” He walks again, gaze set on the dead. Hm. “You’re cold. Would you like this?” His jacket, of course.
𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠, 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬. this corpse was never meant to lose its heat while remaining in the shadows of her presence, and now, she’s been tied down for yet another moment longer. evelynn can hear the steadily faltering heartbeat fading into oblivion, growing dull and slow with time, the hands of a clock aging with copper rust before it finally draws still in silence forevermore. she doesn’t turn just yet. despite the footsteps that step closer and closer, she remains still, her gaze distant in its reach across the porcelain - white expanse blanketing the ground beneath her feet, unmarred in its perfection. it has become unmade, and yet, now it reaches an immaculate state, as if this portrait belongs here, all mangled flesh and sinew and broken bones.
her lashers retreat behind her, gently hypnotic in their wavering sway in the way tree branches dance and bounce at the kiss of wind. evelynn brings her right hand to her face, thumbing her lower lip in a slow, smooth motion, cleaning the remnants of blood from her flesh. she turns on her heels just as her delicate hand falls back to her side, and regards him in freezing silence. those unearthly and unsettling eyes sweep over him with bubbling mesmerization. he doesn’t recoil in fear. no, he stepped closer. he fell into the path of a beast and all but offered her his hand, and for a moment she thinks him a fool, but she can’t stop the breath of amusement from pushing out from her nostrils.
she watches the blooming cloud dissipate in an instant, pressing the groove of her hand upon the curve of her hip. she isn’t dressed suitably for winter, is she ? but . . . what did it matter to her ? slender legs with coils of ribbons decorating her calves and her stilettos, skin - tight leather skirt, and only a loose jacket to match atop a revealing top — it lures in the meek prey. “ maybe i like the cold, ” evelynn begins, raising a perfectly arched brow. she huffs out a rumble of chilling laughter. “ let me get this right. the sight of me makes you cold, yet you’d strip to offer me warmth ? how noble. ” she shrugs and gives him a playfully catty half - smile. “ i’ll take it, then, since you’re offering so generously. i do like a handsome man in as little clothing as possible. ”
