title: the vampire healer when: post the tinkerer where: rome trigger warnings: none
Isabella dies long before the world ends.
It’s a frankly embarrassing showing on her part, and one that stows bitter shame on her the hollow of her chest. But not one that makes her desire to forget. That is a choice she would never make. Despite time resetting, the war still took place. She experienced the war, saw the damage it caused, and she knows she can use what she did experience to help others. That is the only motivation she had ever needed to do anything, and as such the choice it’s easy. Remembering will help her establish common ground with new patients, help her ensure they know that she remembered for them and them alone.
It’s not nearly as painful as it is for some, remembering.
In the end, her death had been quick, nearly painless. Nothing like what had brought her into the arms of vampirism, nothing like the savage pain of betrayal and the burning need for revenge.
She had died, yes, but she had died once before, and frankly, comparing the two deaths made it easy for her to realize that at least she had found peace in her dying moments during the war. It had been something that she had never found, back when she first lost her magic and gained her immortality.
Her only regret is leaving Ayla and Gio behind. In the end, she regrets not talking once more before the end hit her at last.
But despite everything, Isabella does not let the regret and bitterness stop her, not when there is work to be done, not when she can see the progress coming fast and desires to jump on the train.
It is funny, in a way.
She understands the irritation of most of her kind, unable as they are not to kill their prey — accidentally or not — but she had never had such an issue with control so the law is a relief if nothing else. She understands Ayla’s fondness for their own kind, her desire to keep them safe, but she had always found that her sire looking the other way as vampires of all bloodlines broke the law beyond her own understanding.
Even now, that she has been feeding from the vein for months, she thinks that the lack of control that drives her kind to kill should not be praised but seen as something to be controlled.
Hopefully the new law will make them reassess their priorities.
Hopefully she can help.
She doesn’t think she will, not with the pile of work falling on her lap after the war. Not with her desire to volunteer to build bridges with the Eye and ensure they do not make any further leeches from then on.
Her bloodline had already suffered too much on their hands, it’s time to ensure that their suffering stops.
