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Troisième étape de mon périple dans l'Ouest pour retrouver des ami(e)s lointain(e)s : Christian en Bretagne, près de Brest, il y a un mois déjà.

Porspoder, le hameau de Melon.

#bretagne #finistère #melon #porspoder #balise #granite

For my good friend, and local flyboy, @taonpest

In the calm of the Matron’s office, a nib scratched on rough parchment, dragging the inconsistent tones of an under mixed ink.

Below the balcony behind her, the gentle bustle of the late evening market was beginning. wood scraped against wood as stalls were put into their places and small trinkets clattered together on woven cloths.

A vampiric woman kneeled below the statue of their long departed Ascended Lord, His outstretched arm ending in upturned, gently curled fingers. She spoke her prayers under her breath, stopping between verses to place her hand into a clay bowl in front of her. With one hand clutching at jagged, bladed prayer beads and the other reaching out, she gently caressed the statues bare foot. The blood sank into the stone hungrily and without a trace as she continued her prayers. Beneath the threads of a delicately embroidered mask which covered her face all the way to her upper lip, golden rings which pierced the width of her jawbone shook without a sound.

From an alcove in the upper walls of the Necropolis, a flutter of pink ebbed it’s way down toward the market, savoring the now-lit incense and open perfumed oils. A funerary black with flashes of an Azalea’s petal whipped upwards to the Matron’s balcony and through the open doors.

With a light, chitinous clink, the tiny pink-striped fly landed at the end of Vivian’s page and began to preen itself.

The Matron finished her sentence and wiped the excess on her nip back into the well before placing the domed glass lid into place.

“Balise, what is it?”

The vampire sat in the dark as they pointed outwards from their recessed perch in the Necropolis’ walls. The reply came through the beating of thousands of tiny wings in the vampires lungs and larynx,

“A mass grave has been revealed to me. I must tend to my flock urgently to save who we can and then I must commune with those that are lost.”

Vivian met the vampires gaze, though their eyesockets had been replaced by swarming flies. They emerged from their nostrils and followed their paths through the mouth or eyes, beating wings and interacting with their hivemates along their journey.

Even in the dark, the bright pink between the plates of their thorax was visible like a beacon in the night.

Matron Vivian folded her arms behind her back as she looked out into the distant setting sun. Around her feet, the stone had removed the lingering dust from her presence, settling into a near perfect ring away from her long charcoal dress.

“How many?”

“It is hard to tell. Perhaps a dozen.” The vibrating swarm inside Balise settled down for a moment before thrumming back up.

“Perhaps two dozen. We cannot see.”

The vampire tilted their head back a little,

“They cry out for me, Matron.”

“I will ask for a cart to be ready. Can you lead us?”

“I can-” Vivian lingered on her words briefly, “The largest cart we have suited to this task however-”

“Oh please, not him”

Down in the market, a fly flashed pink as its thorax wriggled in flight, cutting through an entryway and down the path past the Ambassadors office, following the smell of old, dried blood.

At the end of the path, through a dark doorway stood the Surgeon, methodically stripping flesh from bone.

#The corpse and the spider #Necropolis snippets #Matron Vivian #a new character is here!#welcome!#Balise #tw body horror #flies #bugs