#balldwin

[softersinned]

@balldwin said: sender kisses receiver to say hello.

There are certain tasks left to her, sometimes for her skill set, more often than either of them will confess for her patience where her husband has none. It's why she's been in Venice these last two weeks, the honored guest of Domenico Michele along with her stepson. Baldwin hadn't liked it, considering the circumstances, but he's always been protective, and she's always enjoyed it. This was no different.

"I'll be fine," she'd assured him before they parted ways, her hands settled gently against his chest, the smile on her face strained. She doesn't like this. She doesn't want to do this. All those centuries she took for granted that, in most circumstances, she would be able to remain with him, but now it's them making these decisions. And if he is back, if he can't die—

—awful, isn't it? Now the prudent thing to do, not for themselves but the family as a whole, is a brief separation, to gather allies as quickly as possible. "Nico will look after me if I need the help," she'd continued, not wanting to say it, knowing it needed to be said. "And Domenico knows better than to let anything happen to me. I'll be fine, and I'll be back soon." (Who was she trying to convince?)

She extracted the same promise from Baldwin and she kissed him goodbye, with a real fear that it might be the last time she did. Perhaps she worries too much, but if anything warrants that kind of fear, it's him coming back. Niccolò had squeezed her shoulder as if to comfort her as they watched him leave, ever respectful of his father's wishes, ever dedicated to his family.

(And because they need to consider it, now, she thinks that her stepson, who hovers near her as they approach Domenico's door, is as good an heir as they could ever hope to find.)

The planned three days turns into a week. The week turns into two. She and Baldwin speak whenever they can, and she does what she came here to do. She is a skillful negotiator, a diplomat in her own right, and Domenico knew her when she was a girl, clinging to her grandmother's skirts and listening in when she wasn't invited. It means that he has a soft spot for her, sometimes, in a way he does not with the rest of the de Clermonts: she never rejected his overtures of friendship. She never denied him. It means, too, that he forgets sometimes that she is as deadly as she is, that she and her husband are well matched.

She leaves Venice with an agreement between them, the promise that when the time comes next their families will be bonded. No doubt Serafine will be eager to see her mate turned, and sooner than later, and Constanta is clearly no longer an option. More than that, she leaves Venice with information: the Drăculești will rise, there is no doubt of that, but they will not do so unobserved.

Niccolò drives, knowing that if he allows Astoria to take the wheel, they may not make it to Sept-Tours in one piece. Baldwin arrived the day before, let them all know he was safe, told Astoria to hurry back to him, and she's been eager to follow his instructions; her stepson watches her with some amusement, but doesn't date tease out loud.

She knows that Baldwin hears the rumbling of the engine, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires, the moment they're on de Clermont grounds. (She imagines Baldwin inside, standing abruptly, ignoring Matthew as he speaks. She imagines Matthew's irritated aside, and Baldwin's simple response: I haven't seen my wife in two weeks.)

Centuries, they've had together, but even centuries don't soothe her unease when they're apart, or calm the hollow ache in her chest to be away from him. Nor do centuries dull the impatience to set eyes on him again, or the eager joy when she recognizes his shape so far in the distance, the set of his shoulders. She grips the seat of her car tightly enough that her fingers pierce through the leather, prompting a snort of amusement from Niccolò.

"Drive faster," she demands hoarsely, and he laughs out loud at that, but he complies.

Astoria sees the moment that Baldwin gives up on patience; it is, remarkably, the same moment she does, as well. She's opened the car door before it's come to a complete stop as he walks closer to where he knows they'll park. One moment, they're apart, and the next, they've crashed into each other, Astoria swept into his arms and Baldwin's hands under her thighs to hold her in place as she wraps her legs around his waist.

The car comes to a stop behind them, the passenger side door left open. Neither of them notice. The moment she's in his grasp she's taken his face in her hands, relieved beyond words to have him whole and before her, and Baldwin closes what little distance is left between them to kiss her.

Centuries, they've had together, and only two weeks apart, but their reunion is as sweet now as it's ever been. One kiss becomes a second and a third, neither one of them willing to be parted, and only the familiar sound of Serafine, standing in a doorway with Diana as she greets her stepbrother, clearing her throat can make them tear themselves away from each other.

It feels like an open wound is healing. Astoria lets out a quiet laugh, and Baldwin tucks his face against her neck for a moment, breathes her in. "He's been insufferable since he got here," Serafine reports cheerfully, and beside her, Niccolò rolls his eyes and laughs.

"One day with just him. Try two weeks with just her."

"Beasts," Astoria informs them, "both of you," and her daughter only grins wider. It's a rare moment of familiarity, of peace, amidst the chaos. Miyako is due tomorrow, with Lydia. Fernando and Sarah will follow shortly after, as will Freyja and Marcus and Phoebe. Gallowglass and Stasia, she thinks, are already here. It's been some time since the whole of the family was together. She's almost glad for it, though now, she doesn't care for anything except the lingering touch of Baldwin's lips against her throat.

"Should I get the others?" Matthew asks. "Should we start discussing our next moves?" But even before he's finished the question Baldwin has lifted his head and begun to walk, Astoria still held firmly in his grasp, Astoria's arms and legs secure around him. When he makes no move to stop in the doorway, Matthew lets out a noise of some disapproval. "Well?"

"Do what you want," Baldwin says, a bit impatiently. He still doesn't stop. "It's been two weeks since I last saw my wife. If you need to speak to me now you can do so while I greet her properly. I don't think she minds an audience."

"You might learn something," she calls over his shoulder, and Matthew simply shakes his head and turns towards his nephew.

It's certainly for the better, she thinks, once Baldwin's teeth are fixed in her throat and her blood is spilling over his tongue. Two weeks without him (only two, she knows, two weeks out of thousands) and she can't bear the thought of sharing him with anyone else.

[murdcck]

@balldwin​ because you decided to torture yourself.

          “ NOT TO SAY I’M NOT FLATTERED IN YOUR INTEREST IN OUR FIRM, but I am surprised. Might I ask what it is about us that caught your attention? ”

[sheswoven]

          ❛❛  𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄   𝐎𝐍 ,   𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄  𝐌𝐀𝐍 !  ❜❜  diana’s  coo  to  her  son  is  made  particularly  audible ,  so  that  her  brother  can  have  every  opportunity  to  prepare  himself  before  the  infant  (  and  his  mother  )  make  an  unceremonious  appearance .  she  continues  up  the  steps ,  making  bouncing  and  burbling  noises  to  the  little  boy  who  laughs  loudly  with  each  step .  with  a  simple  rap  on  the  open  door ,  she  enters .  philippe’s  study  has  become  a  place  of  comfort  for  diana ,  something  she  is  sure  his  other  children  have  shared  throughout  their  years .

              with  a  gentle  smile ,  she  approaches  her  target ,  armed  with  her  weapon  of  choice  .   ❛❛  someone  wanted  to  see their  uncle .  ❜❜  she  looks  at  philip ,  who  stretches  out  a  tiny  arm ,  as  if  on  command .  ❛❛ isn’t  that  right  ?  you  wanted  to  see  uncle  baldwin ?    ❜❜  diana  lifts  herself  to  her  toes ,  pressing  a  brief  kiss  to  baldwin’s  cheek ,  before  lifting  the  infant to  sloppily ‘kiss’ the other  cheek . 

       ❛❛ i also  wanted  to  see you  about  something  too ,  if  you  had  a  minute .   ❜❜

@balldwin​

[adagnitios]

–––     ✽    ◝          ›     @balldwin​​.    ››       starter

                    𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍, 𝐌𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐖,  all she allowed herself to recall from the journey, as they had set course to Sept Tours.  Despite spring nearing and the colours of nature looking  lively,  and the distinct shades the older vampire usually saw in the varying colours, her mind was somewhere else entirely        it had been  numbed,  both out of necessity and choice.  How was she to look at such vibrant colours, when the light,  her light,  had been taken from her?

                        Initially, Miriam had  refused  to go         refused  to leave her late mate’s side for once and for all.  They had seen it all,  together,  and now she was expected to walk away as if nothing happened.  As if she hadn’t lost what felt like  half  of  her.    The fact that he was left in what was now enemy territory only made matters  worse.  Not ready to part, it had been Matthew who had taken her away ;  to  again,  in the time span of mere hours,  painfully  separate her from Ori.  Despite putting up a fight with Matthew   (  as if her life depended on it  )   her rational thinking found a way to  remind  her of the promise she had made.  As any promise Miriam made, she would honour it        but this one  especially ;  the  last  promise to her beloved mate.  To honour it, she needed to stay alive, and therefore she had to find a way to walk away.  Bloody tears formed in her eyes, her lip trembled and breath was caught in her chest as it couldn’t seem to move past her heart        an organ confused whether to beat or say entirely silent, as if it knew it had lost something dear.  

                        Miriam almost felt like a newborn once they had arrived on Sept Tours grounds on horseback, as she wasn’t sure how they had gotten to the place so  quickly.   In a way, the sharp and  painful  emotions had also served as a reminder to her infancy as a vampire        it being the last time she had felt such grief, after an incredible loss over her people and her family.  Back then, she had shifted her focus from grief to  vengeance ;  she had given herself purpose.  She couldn’t mortally harm the person responsible        it would go against the promise made        but perhaps the promise was strong enough to serve as a lifeline.  At least until she could cope without it.  

                        Unlike her outburst  mere moments  after Ori’s death, she had grown  quiet  immediately after, and hadn’t uttered as much as a word since.  She had resorted to suffering in silence, every aspect of her being  numbed  as she tried to move past her core instinct to  survive ;  to keep  breathing.  Supposed she had wanted to speak, what was there to say to the person who was to blame for it all        for a  forever  cut short?  Her mind kept racing, trying  desperately  to hold on to the memories shared with Ori, as she got off her horse.  As her feet landed on the uneven stones, she felt Matthew’s eyes on her, lingering for a moment, but she choose not to acknowledge them        the last thing she needed from  him  was pity.  Miriam heard him walk up the stairs, but instead she took the time she deemed necessary to gather her few belongings, and to  breathe,  before  reluctantly  following him inside. 

[softersinned]

@balldwin said: [ TUG ]: the sender tugs the receiver close against them by resting a hand against the small of their back, pulling them flush against their body.

She wakes at the first blush of morning, a sliver of the sky visible from a gap in the curtains and glowing a pale violet. It catches her off guard some mornings, when she wakes here, and if she asked him to move the bed he certainly would, but the moments afforded to her now are precious and rare, and she guards them. She remains still for a long moment, listening for a change in his heartbeat, and when she hears none she turns, slowly, slowly, to face him, taking care not to disturb his rest.

          The older she gets, she’s been promised, the deeper she’ll sleep; as it is now even the subtlest change in the light can wake her. Some part of it is, no doubt, the natural consequence of a long period of adjustment. Even as a warmblood, Astoria loved mornings, and she woke early even on the days she could sleep in. And she would climb quietly out of bed and tiptoe in bare feet across the floor of her bedroom to the balcony, where she would sit, balanced carefully on the railing, her knees drawn to her chest and her arms around her legs and her hair loose as she watched the sun climb and color ripple through the sky.

          A few of the habits of her first life have remained with her—the way she holds her breath as she settles again, watching him for any sign of change, is one of them. But Baldwin sleeps, and after several minutes she relaxes.

          It’s not the first time she’s woken in his bed; she doubts it will be the last. Last night, as she has half a dozen other times, she leaned in his doorway and waited, a crooked smile playing at her lips, her curls damp but drying behind her, wearing a nightgown and nothing else. The woman he had been entertaining, perhaps expecting to stay the night, had stared back at her with open hostility; she looked to Baldwin, obviously expecting some sort of defense, but he’d only laughed under his breath and stood to gather her clothes. Astoria had noted with some pleasure that they were nearby, no doubt left there in anticipation of her arrival.

          (She’d excused herself when he arrived home with her, feeling agitated and ill at the thought of hearing what she knew would follow, and had gone out to hunt, asking the woman to attend to her to have a bath prepared in two hours’ time. He didn’t keep her as a prisoner or demand to know of her comings and goings, and so she took her time, savored the hunt. Perhaps she should have anticipated it but instinct drove her to seek out something, anything that reminded her of his scent, of saddle leather and fire, and it took her out of the city, towards the woods where a pair of highwaymen had settled in for the night. For near an hour she watched them, made noise only to stoke their growing fear. The savagery of their wounds would suggest an animal attack of some kind; she left them with enough blood in their bodies not to prompt suspicions that the attack was the work of wearh and came home with her cheeks flushed and blood soaking the front of her dress, hidden beneath the cloak she kept held closed around her.)

          (She heard the movement on the second floor slow when she entered and she smiled in spite of herself—she had felt his eyes on her through the window when she left and she could feel his awareness of her now, could practically hear the sharp intake of breath when the sweet perfume of blackberries and plums, colored by the heady scent of blood, reached him. As he could no doubt smell when she reached the top of the steps, deliberately taking her time and allowing the wood to creak beneath her feet. As he could no doubt smell when she unwrapped the small bar of white soap and began to wash the blood and dirt from her skin and hair.)

          And when the unwelcome guest was gone, shown out by the same woman who had drawn Astoria her bath, Astoria climbed into the bed beside him without a word and settled in to sleep, pressed close against him, determined to overwrite his lover’s scent with her own. He’d been amused by her jealousy and possessiveness, as he always was, and welcomed it.

          It’s something softer that directs her now. The sliver of light takes on a warmer tone as the sun climbs slowly higher and she settles her gaze on his sleeping face. These days it’s easier to understand what it is she feels for him—desire, certainly, and hunger, and need, and she understands all of this well enough without much thought, though the intensity of what she feels leaves her breathless at times. But there is something else, something that overrides even desire, something warmer. She thinks of the mornings in Henry’s court that she woke alongside Iain and remembers thinking that she understood love and she realizes now that what she felt then was a pale and poor imitation, and that she was a fool to believe she understood much of anything.

          The slope of his nose drives her to distraction. The curve of his cheekbones could make her mad. One morning she found herself so enamored with the freckles on his forearm that she idly began to count them. Yet another morning she searched out the shadows cast by his eyelashes. The sound of his heartbeat, his breath, his blood is a song—and as a witch she heard blood singing to her all the time but as a wearh the only blood that sings is his, slow and sonorous. She used to imagine she heard God in the water around her but this sound is infinitely sweeter than God’s voice could ever be.

          You sound like autumn, she’d told him once, finally finding the words to describe it and delivering them with absolute wonder, like the last thunderstorm before snow. It had been her favorite sound, and she had been certain that after death, she’d never hear it again. That first time she recognized it she cried, leaving streaks of pink down her face that he swept away with his thumb,

          She listens now, and she watches the way his face glows in the warming light. When he wakes she’ll have to share him with the world: he will be a de Clermont again, and everyone and everything will demand his attention. He’ll find the woman she drove away last night, or someone new, to tease out that jealousy again. Or perhaps he’ll focus the staggering weight of his attention on her and revel in the way he can throw her off-balance, like no one else. No; she hadn’t been in love, then, even when she and Iain laid tangled together and made promises they had no hope of being able to keep. She had been infatuated, but it hadn’t been love.

          This—so profound a physical sensation it leaves her weak at the knees, so deep that it reaches into her body and makes a home in her bones—this is love, and it is incomparable. He is incomparable. And when he wakes she will do what she must and share him with the world, and bite her tongue when the urge to tell him that she loves him so much she doesn’t know how she can bear it, to have all of that love inside of her, begins to overwhelm. But in these moments he belongs to her, and only her. He is Mars at rest, fierce even in his slumber like a sleeping lion, and beautiful. She thinks of the artists she loved as a girl, the sculptor her grandfather patronized and the way he could coax the shape of a face beneath a veil from a block of stone, and she thinks that even the most delicately detailed of his creations ugly and crude in comparison.

          She’s about to try and chase another hour’s sleep when his eyes open. The first thing he sees when he wakes is her face, her hair a mess around her and her features framed by that same sliver of light by which she’s been admiring him. Mars gazing upon Duellona, the god at rest beginning to stir. The corners of his mouth quirk upward and the sight makes her breath catch in her throat.

          Someday she’ll tell him everything. Today the words are nowhere to be found, though she lets her lips part as if she hopes they’ll come out all the same—but no words suffice when she wants to tell him that he is her heart and her ribs and her lungs. Baldwin rolls onto his side and tucks an arm under his head as he does, his other hand coming up to take her chin and his thumb stroking a slow and tortuous line along the curve of her lower lip. When her breathing is sufficiently ragged and her cheeks are flushed with pink, he releases her, lets his hand skate over her arm and down to her side before he settles it at the small of her back.

          Gently, he pulls her closer, as close as he can, until they’re chest to chest and she’s staring up at him with wide dark eyes, her pupils blown so wide there’s barely a ring of honey gold left around them. And then he rolls onto his back again and draws her with him, so that her head comes to rest on his chest; he moves his hand again to catch hers and he rests both against his sternum, and when she looks up at him again his eyes are closed as if he intends to fall back asleep. She hooks her leg over his, settles comfortably against him, and he lets out a quiet huff of laughter.

          She could try to speak now, but she thinks it would shatter the peace around them, and so instead she remains silent. She falls asleep again minutes later, with her ear pressed to his chest and her fingers laced into his, and the sound of autumn storms filling her head.

[softersinned]

@balldwin said: [ BEHIND ]: upon entering the same room as the receiver, the sender steps behind them, and winds their arms around the receiver’s waist, drawing them close against them.

Perhaps because he is the lord of his own demesne, he doesn’t knock when he enters, or announce himself beforehand—he simply opens the door and steps inside, ignoring the various noises of surprise and, in the case of one of the maids fluttering around her, outright disapproval. For her part, Astoria only spares him a smile and a raised eyebrow over her shoulder.

          She knows that look—moreover, she knows not to argue with it. “Excuse us, please,” Astoria instructs, already taking a polite step away and waving a hand vaguely towards the door. When one of the maids, a woman in her forties with a particularly earth-shaking scowl, opens her mouth in protest, he cuts in before she can, voice smooth and sharp at once.

          “No need for you to dress her when I’ll be undoing all your work in a moment,” he says with the arrogant nonchalance of the obscenely wealthy and spectacularly powerful; one of the younger maids lets a giggle escape before slapping a hand over her mouth in embarrassment, and eventually all three of them have filed out of the room. Even before they’ve closed the door behind them Baldwin is behind her, hands settling at her sides, nose tucked in her loose hair; they are, as ever, a picture of perfection, wedded bliss to an extreme. It had been at once brilliant and impossibly stupid of her to recommend marriage as a cover a decade before and she is suffering for it now, all too aware of the way his fingers fit against her ribs, their skin separated by only the thin layer of her shift.

          He should step back once the door has closed and there’s no audience for whom he could continue the charade. He doesn’t. Astoria is absurdly grateful for it. “You’ll have to lace me into my corset,” she says after a beat. “I can’t do it myself.” But the last thing Baldwin seems interested in is giving her more layers; instead, he lets one of his hands skim across her abdomen, low over her stomach, before settling on the opposite hip, and he tugs her closer to him until her back is flush against his chest. He lifts his other hand, a small, folded square of paper between his fingers. When she takes it and opens it, he lifts his head to read over her shoulder, his newly-freed hand mirroring the first before settling against her side.

          “You made an impression on my father,” he observes dryly, and Astoria lets out a spectacularly graceless snort of laughter as she reads.

          “A good impression,” she retorts, and Baldwin doesn’t argue. She’ll count that as a victory. “I confess, though—when he said I might be useful I expected something a bit more... clandestine, I suppose, than this.”

          Perhaps she’s getting used to him. She’s managed to maintain her composure, which is a victory, even if it’s taking far more energy and attention than she thinks it should to do so. Even with her acute awareness of his hands on her, she’s managed to contain the strangled noise sitting at the back of her throat, the shiver that usually follows such attentive touch. As if reading her thoughts, he taps one of his fingers idly against her hip before sweeping his thumb back and forth over the fabric of her shift, and without fail the strangled noise claws its way out of her. much to his obvious amusement. In retaliation, she presses back against him, but it’s a futile gesture: he simply tightens his arms around her, holding her in place, leaving Astoria to try not to whine.

          So. Not used to him at all.

          “It’s an interesting choice, throwing another Catholic at the problem.” He says Catholic with the same idle disgust with which she says horse shit, though she’s grown fond of his teasing, even on a matter such as her faith. “Particularly at a wedding.”

          But Philippe isn’t simply offering up just another Catholic. He’s offering up a Catholic woman. Whatever else Elizabeth Stuart might be, she is no doubt in need of friends. Where Matthew had apparently failed to win the Prince-Elector’s favor, Astoria—charming and clever and cunning—might gain ground with his young bride. The note in her hands is brief, a short list of names and titles she must commit to memory, and when she’s done that she folds it again, to tuck away in the event that she needs the reminder later.

          Westminster is buzzing with activity, Whitehall alive with movement; a royal wedding is cause for celebration, even when the groom, if rumor is to be believed, fails to meet the king’s standards for his daughter. But sweet Elizabeth seems fond of her Frederick, and she has enjoyed Astoria’s company in the past, and if her favor can be kept, it gives them another way in to Bohemia, after some falling out between Philippe and Rudolf some twenty years ago, a falling out Philippe refuses to explain to anyone.

          (The only discussion he had allowed on the subject had been an imperious decree that if the Habsburgs cared so little for the support of the de Clermonts, perhaps the de Clermonts were best served by seeking out Habsburg enemies. And here he had looked between Astoria, sitting at Baldwin’s desk, and Baldwin standing behind her, one hand on her shoulder as he watched his father, before offering one of his mercurial smiles. “No need to get attached,” he’d added. “The Emperor will learn his place.” He’d left them both confused, and once he’d left the house to hunt Astoria and Baldwin found themselves sharing one of the more comfortable chairs, Astoria having dropped into his lap under the guise of being able to speak quietly and without being overheard, Baldwin taking the opportunity to quiz her on her Czech by refusing to answer her in any other language until he let out a sigh and a murmur of we’ll work on that before shifting to German.)

          “I doubt anyone will be paying much attention to me, Catholic or no,” she answers with a huff of laughter, and the hand at her hip falls a bit lower, grazing the top of her thigh, just in time for the laugh to become a low, keening whine.

          “Don’t underestimate people,” he warns, bowing his head so that his lips are at her ear, and when Astoria feels the telltale shiver shooting through her Baldwin’s arms tighten as if he means to pull her under his skin. “What would keep anyone from paying attention to you?”

          “The princess, for one.” But Astoria’s retort is strangled, her voice odd even to her own ear. The door behind them opens and she catches the scent of the younger of the maids, hovering anxiously as if waiting for the right moment to interrupt, to insist that the lady must be dressed. Baldwin’s hold on her slackens for only a moment and she takes full advantage, turning in his arms. Her palms rest lightly against his chest, fingers tapping an idle rhythm, and she tips her head to the side and offers him her most indulgent smile. And even with the fierce blush staining her cheeks and the hoarseness of her voice, she knows he’s not immune to her, any more than she is to him. “It’s bad form to let the bride know your eyes are anywhere else.”

          One of her hands glides across his chest to curl against the side of his neck, her thumb brushing along his jaw. Baldwin has sixteen centuries on her, enough to have taught him self control, and she revels in the little signs he can’t hide—the darkening of his eyes as one of his hands drags to the small of her back to keep her held as close to him as he can manage; the flex of his fingers against her side, like he wants to press beneath her rib cage and hold her beating heart in his hand; the way that he leans forward until they’re nearly nose to nose, perhaps ignoring their silent audience, more likely enjoying any opportunity to push Astoria. Proof that he thinks of her the way she thinks of him—proof that her desire to be claimed is not without cause. Proof that she hasn’t imagined it all.

          (Someday he’s going to push farther still, audience or no, and he’ll take what she holds up to him in offering.)

          “Will you keep your focus on the task at hand, if the bride will demand all of your attention?”

          “Baldwin.” And she says his name like it’s something holy; she wants to let it sit on her tongue like the body and blood, untouched as it becomes a part of her. “It’s not Elizabeth I fear will hold my attention.”

          He grins, then, falls silent for long enough that Astoria forgets entirely that there’s anyone else in the room. When he speaks, she nearly stumbles into him, startled by the reminder that anything else could possibly exist besides him, and his clever hands, and his smile. “I know,” he says, loud enough for the maid to hear. “My wife needs to be dressed. Bring me her corset.” As the maid clears her throat, sounding chagrined at being acknowledged, and shuffles across the room, Baldwin brings his lips to Astoria’s ear again with a quiet turn around.

          He laces her tightly enough that, were she human, it might be painful, but as she is, it feels like a challenge.

          (Someday he’ll take what she offers and she won’t know what to do with herself besides beg him not to let her go.)

          She references the list of names and titles again before she leaves her room, all knowledge of everything but him forgotten in favor of the memory of his hands.

[softersinned]

@balldwin​ said: ❝ are you angry with me? ❞

Every inch of her hurts. The wound in her side is fresh, and painful, but it’s the gash in her thigh that very nearly spelled her end, and there is a fierce and potent mixture of shame and anger swirling in her, a little tempest building and building in her chest. Baldwin has, quite literally, left a handprint on her side where he’s helped keep her upright, and when her eyes flicker down she can see the crimson stain on his fingers still. 

          Her own hand, pale and shaking, comes up as if to halt him. “Let me see if I know how this will go,” she says, voice strained. “I say yes, Baldwin, I am angry with you, because you stopped me from getting what I wanted. You say, better angry than dead, and you remind me that had you not intervened, Elyssa would surely have killed me. I say, at least she would be dead alongside me. You tell me that you don’t intend to waste your time teaching someone with so little interest in their own survival, because you are an important man with important things to do. I tell you then that I am exhausted more than anything, and that I have been left to simply survive for too long, and that if I cannot properly live then this isn’t worth it. You tell me that I will live again when I am ready, and that to get there, I must be patient, and I mustn’t sneak out of the house, and I mustn’t disobey your commands or ignore your guidance. If I have missed anything, then please, tell me.”

          There’s something not unlike a sob caught in her throat but she refuses to give it voice, refuses to give Baldwin anything that might suggest that she truly is so weak. And perhaps it is unfair to him — he has been a good teacher, and without him, she thinks she would be dead already. Even at his most frustrated, his most exhausted with her, he has been good to her. He doesn’t deserve her anger, and she knows it, and there will come a time when he tires of saving her from her own worst impulses. 

          But her voice does tremble, just a bit, just for a moment, when she speaks next. “There is something missing from me,” she insists, “like they carved out my lungs when they changed me. I cannot breathe. I cannot rest. No matter what I do, I am always restless, and I am always angry. And I cannot survive like this, let alone live. I reach for my magic and nothing answers. Did you know, once, I could hear blood like a song? I could hear everything like a song, and now, that’s gone. Even when I can hear everything, it’s so damnably quiet it makes me half mad. And you might be right about everything — you probably are — but what lesson is there to teach me for this? I am in every way more perfect than I was and I am so desperate for control that I can enjoy none of it. What more must I learn?”

[softersinned]

@balldwin / plotted starter.

Something is going to happen tonight.

She's not sure why she knows, only that she does know. Everything feels slightly off: the plants in the house quiver when she isn't near, as if they're afraid of a coming storm, and the cats have been stalking the halls of the house with obvious anxiety when they're not staring out the windows as if on guard. Something possessed her to renew all of her protective spells this afternoon, to carve new runes into her black pillar candles and light them all; they're still burning, the flames flickering unevenly as she opens the front door and steps outside. Even in her boots and with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a cup of tea burning between her hands, the winter chill feels profound, and the snow falls silently.

That alone would be enough to put her on edge: the water always sings for her, but tonight, there's no sound to be heard.

"I hate surprises." She says this to herself, mostly because there's no one there to hear her complaining; the cats are keeping their distance from the cold as she kicks the door closed behind her, and even Maeve Roe hovers far enough away that Astoria can barely see her. Something is coming. It's getting closer and closer; it's been getting closer and closer for hours now. Her tarot cards and tea leaves have done nothing to help her sort through what it might be. Her intuition is maddeningly vague. Astoria only knows that it, whatever it is, is getting closer because the itching in her left palm has grown from a light tingle to something almost painful.

She feels the wind shift before she sees the headlights. Slowly, she takes a sip of her tea, wincing when she burns her tongue. It comes closer and closer and closer. Maeve Roe flickers under the sliver of the moon, like a vision fading from view, and Astoria tries not to read too much into it. If she were listening for it, she'd hear the sounds of the nine o'clock train passing a few miles away, its whistle audible even when its rumble can't be felt, but she's not listening for it. She's waiting.

She hardly notices the car even as it pulls up. Instead, she's staring at the shape of the man inside it, trying to catch a glimpse of him before he opens the door. When the door does open she feels another chill, unexpected and deep enough that she swears she feels a vibration in her bones.

The first thing she realizes, as she hears the sound of snow crunching under his shoes when he steps out of the car, is that he is a vampire. The second is that his presence, intimidating though it may be, doesn't feel wrong. Shouldn't it feel wrong?

"Hell of a night to be driving," she calls by way of greeting, and she inclines her head towards the door. She's not sure what possesses her to make the invitation, only that she makes it before she can stop herself: "Well? Are you coming in?"