A Flashback || SelfPara
Location: Bella's room, Valentin's South Withermore Estate Time: A few weeks after becoming a vampire.
Soft silk rubbed between her calves as she drew her feet up beneath her in the large bed, the fabric tightening over her knees. The sound was ungodly loud as sheets grazed one another, vibrating in her ears. Such loudness made her consider asking to feed, her senses dulled when she fed, focused on the food. Bella had told him this. He had written something down. Still the dullness that came lasted only a few moments and he had insisted that her body would adjust to her new senses. He had still written something down. Maybe other newborns couldn't communicate how irritating all their senses were because they felt far more compelled to feed.
That was what he had tested on her afterall. A subdued hunger. She was glad it had worked, or worked to some degree. She didn't think she could handle becoming something feral and monstrous while grieving her wings as well.
Bella could still feel them in her mind, her muscles shifting as she willed limbs that were no longer present to caress her form as the sheets had for weeks. Even when she left the bed she had requested robes she bundled herself up in, removing the garment only when tests were needed. He could probably see the way her body adjusted when she removed it, like she were pulling her wings back as well, attempting to lift something unseen off the floor of the room he studied her in. It was not his lab, but some other space he used to test her. She hadn't seen his lab since her death.
She was glad he didn't seem to counter her that she was dead whenever she mentioned it. He noted it. He noted almost everything. How he noted it she wasn't sure. Perhaps he simply wrote 'delusional' down and continued asking questions. It didn't bother her. Whatever he was doing was the only thing it felt she had to exist for. The only thing that stopped the tears after the first day. She hadn't even fed by the time he had summoned for her, eyes weak and face wet. He asked if she was hungry and she had said 'no' and immediately asked on her wings. The alchemist never seemed to care the loss upset her, beyond trying to discern if her sorrow was a side affect, which was why she knew he hadn't turned her assuming she'd lose them, why she never became enraged.
With fingers curling around the sheets she heard a loud dragging sound and she tried to focus on what he had told her regarding the overwhelming nature of her senses. To control her own focus. So she attempted as much. Instead listening for the distant sounds of his turning pages, or scribbles with quill and ink. Distant sounds were quiet, and if she listened for them those that were closer would fade. It took a few moments for her to find the sound of him in the estate, but eventually she did, curiously calloused fingers turning parchment pages softened her mind, allowed her to relax within the sheets engulfing her.
"Forgive me my selfishness, Mother," she prayed as softly as the steps of mice in the kitchens. "I wished only to save what you had given me." Her slender pallid fingers grasping the sheet tightly in the darkness they kept her in. "Please give them back."
Her celestial mother did not respond as she once had.
All Bella could hear was her sire's quill against parchment, the sound of a swirled letter swinging across the sheet, a strict pull as something was crossed out, before a page was turned. Valentin did not breathe and hearing his lack of breath allowed for her own she habitually retained to stop as well.
"Let him know how to give them back."
@valentinstjohn