'but soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
it is the east, and juliet is the sun.'
words upon a bloodied page; centuries old parchment torn around the edges by shattered glass against a crimson soaked rug. screams in the distance, a fox calling into the veil between night and day. crystalline shards scatter the entranceway of the old english home, the chosen dwelling of a vampire who'd chosen to bask in the light of humanity. the home is grand by average standards and yet nothing of what would be expected of it's owners' status. it's warm, colored ascents and trinkets of his homeland sprinkled throughout it's corners. a woman's coat knocked off a rack lays upon the ground, muddied footprints stomped into it. the scent of fresh death is thick, swirling in the too silent air. splintered wood lays further inside, a bannister broken. the wall is busted inward as if someone had been thrown into it with unnatural force. crimson rivers leak, seeping, dripping across shelves and artifacts and a singular child's toy at the intersection of the foyer.
the wind from the open door catches, swirls through the ghostly halls. it moves passed the body of a woman upon the ground, her hand laid over the child's toy and her neck ripped out with a feral sort of vengeance. her scent mixes with another, a few meters further. a man bloodied, battered, dead. another upon the turn. and one more, another man, each destroyed as if their right to exist, even in death, had been revoked by one or all of the gods. the breeze proceeds upon it's odyssey, swirling and shifting, scents mingling as it travels toward the shattered window in the furthest room-- it's escape of the this horrorscape. the sound of pages pierce the early hours, a ghost in a tomb which once was a home. pages move, blood drops winkling the pages of a book among dozens scattered across the room.
'a glooming peace this morning with it brings;
the sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
for never was a story of more woe than this
of juliet and her romeo.'
mehmed's body lays upon the ground, half covering books and broken glass, his ancient body appearing such for the first time as it desiccated, and yet in the stillness he almost appeared asleep if naught for the blood. there was so much blood. dry and wet, covering her in too many places, tears upon her clothes from a struggle and crimson smeared across her face where ariadne had allowed her newly formed fangs to tear into flesh. there was a dull pain in her jaw she was beginning to feel, the dark frenzy of violence and shock melding into the brief flickers of awareness in the red streaks beginning to from across an increasingly turbulent sky, shrouding the brightness of sun in shadows.
a toddler cries out from a closet with a stark suddenness, their mother having little memory of the voices she had risen to, moving toward the child to take her, only the blind rage she had felt. the pain. the turmoil. the primal need of a mother, and of a lover as mehmed's lifeless eyes looked upon her. she doesn't remember the struggle, or the footfalls, or the crashes. she doesn't remember tearing into the flesh of the first threat as the others scattered. she doesn't remember grabbing alara and putting her into the closet, ariadne's own blood and the man's smearing across the child's onesie. she doesn't remember hunting the others down through the house. she doesn't remember returning. she doesn't remember holding mehmed or her refusal to open the closet door out of fear. fear of what she was. fear of the memory of her own mother who had been so close to harming her own daughter-- the madness that had over taken her. (but ariadne was stronger than her mother, she always had been. and such had been the saving grace, if there could be one of the night.)
she doesn't remember, until the approaching footfalls break the hold her shock has over her and she remembers everything all at once. blood. there was so much blood. she could feel it, smell it, crave it, fear it. her face, she can feel the pain in her gums. she can feel the veins in her face. she can sense everything, too much. she needs to go to her daughter. can she? his body's at her knees.. mehmed... mehmed... the crunch of glass. osman. osman killed a member of their order. they'd said that. mehmed had talked about it. worried it'd shift the tides-- bring too much exposure. it wouldn't matter if how many resources they had as one of the great families... she remembers now. she remembers.
"you did this!" she moves in a blur, both hitting the wall and knocking what little remained to the ground. alara cries again because of the sound and ariadne's grip tightens but she doesn't attack as if she's warring with herself and yet such a battle proves she already maintains more control than what should be expected. even if it's precarious. her grip loosens, turns into shoving, into hitting his chest until she's falling under the weight of everything that's too much. she can see the bodies, the killers, the murderers in the corridor.
would they have come one day, either way?
"he's gone. he's dead.
they murdered him.
and... i killed them."
ariadne emits a guttural cry.
