@alltrixnotrust
elijah & calypso
the streets surrounding the royal theatre.
It wasn’t rare for her to spend many late hours tucked away in her dressing room at the theatre. Especially after the revelation she’d experienced at the royal ball. Elijah was alive. He was alive and he looked like he had barely aged a day since she had seen him last, over a century ago. Seeing him had had all those ancient, buried feelings surging to life once more. The grief of leaving him, the guilt of not telling him why, all the regret. All the love. Vampires didn’t get sick, their state of undeath making them immune to disease and rot, but the way her heart had ached in the aftermath of seeing him again…she thought it might just kill her. Perhaps she had wanted it to. She had left him to protect him, hers was not a fate she would wish on anyone and yet…it had found him anyway.Calypso had spent days lost in the depths of her darkest fears. Had she doomed him by leaving? Could she have saved him from this fate if she had stayed? Should she have never let herself love him in the first place? Now that he had found her again what would he want from her? Their interaction at the ball had been so brief, but there had been no joy, no tearful beloved reunion. Just her own fear threatening to drown her and his unreadable gaze.
Did he hate her?
She had been pondering that question as she read over her score for her coming opera performance. The theatre was blissfully quiet in the dark hours of early morn, and when her thoughts became too much for her she could pace across the empty stage, under the dim glow of the ghost light, and distract herself with scales. At least she could until the sound of thunder had ripped through the empty space. The storm had hit so hard and so fast, the likes she hadn’t seen in decades. The theatre, by some blessed miracle or city planning, remained stable and mostly dry, elevated above the floodwaters that ravaged the surrounding streets. Calypso had never been on to sit by in safety while others suffered, especially when she could offer safety. It didn’t take long to begin evacuating lost and stranded citizens into the safety of the theatre. The theatre manager handed out blankets and anything he could dig out from the costume store to keep people warm as Calypso herded, dragged or carried more and more people through the doors, each time turning back into the storm to search for others.
She’d been moving through what seemed to be an empty street, flood waters ebbing around her knees and dragging at the skirt of her gown, soaked through to the bone from the rain. Families sheltering in the theatre were still missing members, and she couldn’t leave them wondering, not if there was a chance they could be reunited. The sound of the rain and thunder clouded her usually superior hearing, and all the water had dampened any scents that may have lingered on the air. Even for a vampire of her age, tracking in these conditions was difficult. She had been too focused on what she couldn’t sense, she had been looking out for the wrong things, when the waters around her legs swelled suddenly, the current sweeping her feet from under her. Before she could panic, however, strong, familiar hands had grabbed her arms and pulled her from the grip of the tempest. She emerged from the water with a gasp - despite not really needing to breathe - and her feet found steady ground beneath her, a balcony of a townhouse. The water cleared from her eyes and she could finally see her rescuer - and her heart dropped into her stomach.
“Elijah?”