An Old Friend in Novigrad
(starter for @sanguineos)
The town sang and danced with all the force of whatever celebration was underway by the time Damian crossed into Novigrad.
Time had long since become a meaningless thing to him, he couldnât have said whether he had spent days or weeks stumbling through forests and muddy roads to reach the city. Too deprived of blood to run, too weak to surrender himself to the wind and trust a batâs wings to carry him the rest of the way.
At the heart of the town, between a broad fountain and a church of pristine white stone, a great bonfire clawed at the midnight sky. Flames crackled through stacked cherrywood logs, casting molten gold across the square and filling the air with the scent of smoke and sweet sap. The structure towered nearly halfway up the church itself, a massive triangular skeleton of stripped tree trunks and heavy branches.
The streets teemed with people, young and old alike spilled from taverns and doorways, laughing with wine-flushed faces. Barrels stood open along the square, their contents flowing freely into wooden goblets and eager hands. Some lingered in tight embraces, while others danced around the bonfire in dizzy circles, moving in time with the music drifting through the night.
A troupe of troubadours occupied a makeshift stage near the fountain. The platform looked as though it had been assembled from whatever scraps of wood could be found and held together by little more than optimism. A length of maroon fabric hung across the front, decorated with garlands of leaves, strings of berries, and deep violet flowers that swayed gently whenever the dancers thundered past.
Mortals were forever abandoning old gods, old customs, old promises. Entire kingdoms rose and collapsed in less time than it took vampires to become bored. Yet somehow, after centuries of wars, plagues, kings, priests, and revolutions, people still gathered beneath bonfires to celebrate the longest days of the year.
A strange sort of persistence, a stubbornness he could almost admire.
Finding Dorian, on the other hand, had required considerably less effort than expected.
The bastard may as well have walked around with a glowing target painted on his back. Every fresh-faced local seemed delighted to speak of dear Salazar and his beautiful flowers. They laughed behind open palms and exchanged knowing looks, as though privy to a joke Damian alone had been excluded from.
He simply wanted answers, however, what he found was Passiflora.
If the heavens concealed Eden somewhere among the clouds, Novigrad flaunted its own earthly paradise openly. The establishment was lavishly adorned with flowers spilling from balconies and curling around carved railings. Damianâs eyebrows climbed toward his hairline when he discovered Dorian wasnât, in fact, selling rare blooms.
Well⊠that certainly explained the laughter.
âTell your⊠employer Damian Van Ćowca is here,â he told the girl stationed at the entrance, keeping his gaze fixed on the flowers braided through her hair rather than the flimsy scraps of fabric she wore. âI shall be waiting for him.â
The girl dipped into a graceful curtsy and disappeared through the doors before he could demand an explanation.
Was he truly surprised to find out his friend owned a brothel? Not particularly.
Dorian had always worshipped excess and, more often than not, surpassed even his own devotion to it. Damian suspected the other vampire found mortals endlessly fascinating for that reason alone: how effortlessly they surrendered themselves to vice.Â
Humans rarely sought to resemble their gods, their appetites were far better suited to vampires.
Mortals spent their brief lives chasing sensations they could never hold onto. They drank too much, loved too hard, gambled fortunes away, ruined themselves for beauty, power, desire. For creatures who lived less than a century, they possessed an astonishing talent for self-destruction.
The suite was little short of a greenhouse. Damian traced the gilded ridges of the wallpaper with absent fingers, feeling foreign in the gesture. Everything felt overwhelmingly alive. Three hundred years ago he would have considered the room gaudy, now it simply hurt to look at. After centuries trapped in deathlike slumber, every color seemed sharpened beyond reason; reds bled into crimsons, gold gleamed like captured sunlight, even the green of the leaves felt aggressive, blooming behind his eyes until a dull ache settled beneath his skull.
"I thought you might leave your dear friend waiting," Damian mused as the door swung open and clicked shut behind its occupant. Time settled differently upon immortals; some became brittle, others became monstrous. Dorian seemed to have become expensive. "Three centuries have passed. I could hardly hold it against you."
Already rummaging through the suite's cabinets, Dorian procured a bottle of liquor. It did nothing for their kind, of course, but friendship was built upon a thousand shared pretenses.
A drink for your troubles.
A hand that will not harm you.
A back I shall never stab.
Two crystal glasses dangled between Dorian's fingers before finding the center table with a soft click.
âI shall not offend you with empty pleasantries,â his voice emerged rougher than intended. The hunger again, always the hunger. He hooked two fingers beneath the collar of his shirt and tugged it loose, the fabric suddenly felt restrictive around his throat. âI need your help.â
Damian lowered himself into one of the armchairs, noting its luxurious softness for future commentary. Trust Dorian to lavish equal care upon his patrons and his flowers, Damian had known long ago that he would make an exceptional coven leader.
"I need to catch a thief. The little vermin responsible for waking me."
The words tasted strange, humiliating. He had survived wars, religious purges, entire centuries dragging by, only to be robbed by some insolent creature whose name he didnât even know.
His thoughts wandered, unbidden, to the crypt from which he had clawed his way back into the world. The place where he had chosen to die beside Amala.
The earth had claimed her. Time, however, had spared him.
"They have Amala's necklaceâŠ" Damian murmured, staring into the untouched liquor in his glass. Three centuries had passed, and he remained exactly as he had been. That, perhaps, was the true curse of immortality: endless stagnation.Â