Quince
plant drabbles!
Quince; Temptation
There were things in this world, vices that Silas couldn’t walk away from. Immortality always came with an unfortunate price, even a hypocritical one. And though the good caretaker had reached a place of control, of safety, hunger would always be a necessity. It wasn’t immortality that was necessarily the curse, it was merely the nourishment that prolonged it.
Every so often, when his fangs sank down into heated flesh, he could still remember the first time– the first victim. Even after 600 years, the blood still tasted the same.
Weak with hunger, the then-fledgling had dropped to his knees and clutched his pained stomach, his forehead resting on the floor. A hoofed demon stood behind him to keep guard and make sure that he wouldn’t get hurt. A soft, flat snout pressed into his damp, messy hair in an attempt to comfort him, though the attempt was unfortunately all for nothing. It was if the world went completely still for minutes, maybe even hours. Silas couldn’t even focus on time when he was suffering this badly.
But soon enough, the echoing of footsteps resonated in the distance and slowly became louder. It sounded like six feet altogether, two were of his kind and four belonged to some sort of animal with claws. Among those sounds was masked something dragging across the ground, and somebody was crying into a rag or some sort of cloth.
As inevitable as it was, Silas tried his hardest to pretend it was something else. Anything, please be anything besides that.
“Sit up, boy.”
Silas followed the order like he was forced against his will, and his eyes fell upon a young woman, her dress in tatters and her collar clamped in between the jaws of a giant wolf. Her mouth was covered with a cloth tied around it, the edges of it stained by the tears that fell down her face.
“I know you don’t want to do this. I can see it in your eyes, but you must. When you gain your strength back, then you can begin your training. Then, you will begin your rise to make your existence meaningful to the world.”
The fledgling’s mouth opened, using the last of his energy to get back on his feet. But even then, a large red hand rested on his shoulder and squeezed firmly.
“I’m not going to escape. I just–”
“Stop wasting your time thinking.”
The woman still jerked against the wolf’s grasp, trying to escape. She locked eyes with Silas, silently pleading him not to. She already knew he was was a monster; she knew he was dangerous and that he would do what he was told– whatever it was. It only dawned on her when Silas’s lips parted, and her body withered in fear.
Slowly, he took the young woman by her forearms and urged her to stand, and once the wolf allowed this motion, the young woman’s hair was carefully brushed behind her shoulder. With a deep breath, he forgot every member of the Guard that watched him, let them fade into the darkness of the night until he could only see the girl. It was useless to hide his intentions any longer; the hunger was whispering urges of desperation and there was no need for subtleties.
His jaw dropped, and silently, he clamped down into the crook of her neck. There was a squeak from the young woman that followed afterward, but she soon quieted. And as his own strength started to return to him, as his muscles quivered less, hers became limp. Her pulse was still like a war drum in ever single one of his veins, and her breaths slowed.
Silas didn’t need to be told when to stop. In fact, even when he stopped to breathe, his gaze shifted to look at his leader, who stood curious as to why he didn’t continue.
“I feel fine now. Let me learn to fight, let me learn whatever it is you want me to do.”
The wolf and his leader looked at each other as Silas laid the girl down on the ground. He took a step back from the temptation of her slowing pulse, unsure whether it was even too late to save her or not. As much as he wanted to walk away, he was encircled with no exit unless the rest of the Guard allowed it.
All eyes fell on him in curiosity, which only made her pulse louder. It kept beckoning to him, begging him to drink more.
“I don’t want to. Not anymore. Let me walk away.”
He wiped the remaining blood from his chin and stepped back until he collided gently with the hoofed demon, which he was only nudged forward again. Hunger only urged him once again to claim what was supposed to be his, and heightened all his senses to hone in on the spilling blood. And being as weak as he was at the time, the moment he dared to close his eyes, he lost himself in the temptation and bit her a second time.
Six hundred years, Silas would still look down upon still bodies listening to their life fade away, because he chose his own life over theirs.
“You can’t save everyone. There will even be times when you are the cause of a mortal’s death. One life means nothing against billions of others, even thousands. Even hundreds.”
