My brain has been screaming about Vamp closing for a long while. In this house we process trauma with writing.
Rarely is it posted, I'm old and don't always wanna share because my skills no longer match my previous expectations and works anymore. Yeah, still good but we are all our own harshest critic. However every now and then I am willing to toss something out regardless of self-perception/requirements.
So here is a slew of feelings given form on this. Is it irrational, yes, as well as slightly unhinged in desire. It is wordy, and overly descriptive. That is just how I write at times. If you don't like angst or excessive descriptions (not Tolkien talking trees but you will get the idea) please bypass. My writing is not to please everyone anymore. Comte centered.
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Emotions were bubbling up as she rushed past. Greetings and friends that would normally have caught her for a moment of acknowledgment blended by in a swirl of colors and a whirlwind of movement. An amalgamation of feelings had been given life months ago. A wicked small thing that grew ever larger, with sharp teeth and claws that dug into her deepest core. It was a reeling experience of fear and loss that twisted hot and cold in her stomach.
She had been told by others to name feelings. That in doing so it would allow her more control over them and how they affected her. So, she named it sorrow to give it identity and recognition, then forced herself as best she could to forget.
Maybe if she ignored it long enough it would suffocate due to lack of acknowledgment. She had tried to bury it initially, immersing herself in denial and everyday tasks. She tried to drown it with happiness; with the joy he brought her with his presence. Pressed every moment deep into her heart and mind. So completely immersed she was certain he would never leave. It ate it. Every one of them consumed, like flame to paper, her joy crumbled and feathered apart.
Experiences, glinted golden in the occurrence, leaving her to sleep soundly in moonlight’s embrace, but each day she woke again to the fragility of it all. Gossamer thin, memories held together with routine turned into ephemeral moments of smoke and torn spider silk that danced and shredded, dreams turned to ash scattered on waking. The jokes and the banter, stories that had become her daily moment of reprieve from a world that was too overwhelming, too jaded.
With every laugh and small glance, she forced herself to forget in the normalcy, buried the dark thing down further, deeper. Swept the memories back together to from corners of the mansion he had built for love and friends. She had bathed herself in the light of the holidays, participating in the traditions of snow and the new year once again. Accomplishments piled up as she returned each day, the same and the new. Beats to an old familiar dance that brought a soothing melody to life. It sharpened its claws.
Life in the mansion felt like a music box that she could wind and enjoy, a glimmer of twinkling notes in a place that had become a second home for six or seven years now. She could not remember exactly how long it had been, so much had happened. Love that was never ending, friends with expertise that she basked in their presence and knowledge. Acceptance that she had never found anywhere else despite her best efforts. Yet, it taunted in the depths of her mind, a growing shadow and creeping lariat that despite all her mental gymnastics continued to tighten around her.
She found it harder to ignore as days grew longer, where darkness lingered beyond the set of the sun and cold filled her bones. He was there again. Unbothered and unaffected by time. A gentle smile that steadied her wavering heart. In their years together silver has graced its way into her hair, while his remained unfailing gold, spun as though from a fairytale, where the guess of a name could save the day.
“What’s wrong Ma Cherie?”
She froze for a moment, steeling herself against the dreaded thing she would have to say, it had been threating to swallow her for some time, circling repeatedly each time she saw him.
“They are taking you from me.” He expected honesty from her, in his room, this small sanctuary of sands of time and tomes, with him sitting in his winged back chair she acknowledged it. The golden glow of him and the room dimming with the realization. He waited as always for her to continue. “They are taking you from me, and I can do nothing to stop them. I have begged, and cried, along with countless others for them to not do so.”
It stirred again, larger than she remembered it being, despite the depth she had buried it in and locks she had pushed it behind. It had consumed every barrier she had made, tainting and turning it all to despair in her search for something solid to stop the progression
His eyes met hers, unaffected and unsurprised with the statement. “That is not possible.”
“I can assure it, it is. No matter what I might pay, or time I might give, no matter where I might go, one day they will stop me from being able to see you. To share with you moments as we have already.”
“They warned us all. Months ago. I thought, I tried to ignore it. To carry on and cherish what we have already.
“They said you would be removed from me, you will go on for others, but not for me. Then they came back, said that they were moved by all the pleas, and we can stay a bit longer. That I can see Leonardo’s growth. God knows he needs it, and I am glad to be here for it.” She felt herself smile at that. “That old wolf needs change and happiness as much as anyone, he has let fears consume him for too long, not without good reasons, but living in that fear stunted him.” She was rambling, thoughts coming faster than she could stop them poured from her lips.
“He has.” Comte acknowledged
She felt it fully. The impending loss, eating all joy that occurred being with him, the claws no longer took small bits, but sliced through everything with anticipatory dread. “I do not wish to be removed from the future with you all. I want to fight with Arthur, and have Theo call me puppy. To go shopping with Sebastain, to poke fun with Drake at Galileo. To go where you go and grow as you do I want this life!”
Ancient and hollow, this must be what it means to be vampire. Realization struck her. To forever want to persevere the moment, the beauty and joy while knowing the next moment or the one beyond held nothing but loss. To starve it all off until the very end, only to lose out to an uncontrollable and inevitable outcome.
Day in, day out. Year after year. Begging fate for longer moments wrapped in the golden hues he dressed himself in. It was a shield from it all. His colors. To wrap memory in a never fading, glinting, untarnished beauty to get through the next moment when the claws would come again.
He sat and waited for her to continue, countless years recognizing loss as only one can when one has already experienced it. “How?” It was a whisper, and a plea, a moth caught somewhere between the web and fangs, exhaustion stilling wings that had beat so long for freedom from inevitability. “How do you go on without going mad when you have found that place?”
He chuckled then, a dark sound that was not often released “Who says we are not mad? To know love it is to know madness. To know loss is to embrace it. To hunt it again is to search in madness.” He did not move, the molten amber of his eyes capturing hers as he spoke. “We are all mad Ma Charie, it is unending. You learn to live with it. To know when it sleeps and when it eats. To go beyond it. To grow despite it.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” It sounded true through, somewhere it resonated with the thing that had been eating away at her, stilling it for a moment like a morning bell breaking through fog.
“We love, and we lose, and we fall, looking for what we once held, even in small fragments. Balms to fille holes left by love. Memories fade, and become stories that we recall. With time they dull, only momentary notes calling back to us, as though they happened to someone else. Still, we search for them again, in other places and other people.”
His eyes never moved, a scholar in this he knew it better than anyone. “Sometimes it is in different ways. Love, that consumes everything waking as it did for Vlad, to work to preserve only the perfection while finding that one person again. Others it is as it was for Galileo and Drake, to remove obstacles in the hopes it could never come again to harm. To deny it time as Leonardo had. The more one tries to control love, the more painful it becomes, turns to madness and we lose it. Ultimately, we are all just stories. Motes of light that resonate for an infinitesimal amount of time with the potential to resonate with others. Once that light is out, we search for it again in the darkness. In people, in places or experiences. Hoping to see and feel it once again.” He gave a small smile that did not reach his eyes.
“It is learning to live with the madness, and not allowing it to consume you that is the hardest part for loss. Time helps, and eventually hope returns. I may not be by your side, even were you turned, memory eventually fades to story, and story becomes inspiration for obtainment. It is what gives life purpose, this madness and desire for that once more.”
“You will find me in places you do not expect, in foods you have yet tasted, in people you have yet to meet. It will not be all of me, but parts of me that grow. You will have to search, sometimes it will be easy to find. Others, you may look for years, or a lifetime. Love is something with wings, that escapes even the hardest pursuits. That is why you must not sink all of yourself into it. Grow, become, learn, it will come. It may not stay forever, despite our best efforts, but it will be there at some point once again.”
“It is the only way I can never be taken from you; your access may go, memory will fade. Life will move forward, but I will never truly be gone. You will find me and I will find you. Somewhere in time.”
Blinking, she realized she had sat as she listened to him, on the windowpane as light and warmth draped over her. Sunshine. Slowly it soaked into her, the beams carrying Comte’s words. They steeped through muscle and sinew, filling her bones with the warm promise of spring. She could hear voices on the other side. The verbose cacophony of Arthur and Isaac and Dazai as they quarreled in the garden. Piano notes danced on the wind, Mozart. A distant clang of swords. Jean and Napoleon. It was home, in a strange sort of way she would never be able to describe. It was surreal and more real than anything else she had experienced.
They would all part one day, regardless of availability. That was life, nothing could stop change, seasons would come and go, the same and so very different time and time again. Endless.
Ancient. He waited for her, in the depths of room where light did not quiet reach. Strides away but it felt like the world. He waited. Neither pressing nor rushing, for her to accept, as he always did. A lifetime could have passed as he waited for her to process it all. It was a burden she would have to carry, regardless of his desire to do it for her.
“I will not stop looking for you. In time, in space. Wherever I must go, or however long I must wait, I will find you. I will never say goodbye. I will simply find you again. Until next time.”
“I know. You have done so, before. You will doubtless do so again.”
