In the lead-up to the Worlds Figure Skating Championships of 1967, a vampire finds himself revisiting the city in which he was turned. Sixty-seven years later, he contemplates the repercussions.
Found something in my notes that I intended to hide?? Anyways, here is the ORIGINAL first scene of Chapter Three: his wanting grows thorns
See:
Rest assured of your moral superiority, reader. However heartening, however beautiful, this tale wends the eternal lives of demons and their fellows.
Yuri Plisetsky, for all his tragedy, is no wilting petal. He does not fawn upon the discovery of his true nature; does not confront, with any derision, the necessity of murder to sustain himself.
Picture, as you go along, the porcelain smoothness of his skin, his doll-soft cheeks and seafoam green eyes. He is the garden fairy of your bedtime stories. He is the painting your grandmother cleans on her altar - angel, on the right hand of Christ, himself, blonder than wheat and paler than the white of a blank canvas.
Says the matriarch as you tend to your knees after Rosary: if one's blood heals wounds and cures illness, this blood is without doubt miraculous.
If one's carcass persists in the years that follow their initial passing, untainted by the wretchedness of decay, that carcass must be sent to the Vatican and sanctified.
What a sham, Yuri's youthful appearance! Such deception they preach beneath the apses of their unobservant God, arms raised in teaching - that to die a child is to die innocent! That to die at all means to be raised in spirit to realms beyond the sins of humanity!
Here he stands unbending to the tides of time, month after month, year after year...
Bow at your waist as he reintroduces himself to society; appear appropriately cowed. Maybe he will spare you.
Why did I NOT use this in the chapter despite it being a perfectly fine scene? Simple really. The thought of folks with hurt feelings over religion clogging up my AO3 about yk, fiction, was enough to cow me. Also it deviated a little bit from the point of the plot, so I saw no reason NOT to just boot it out.
That said, I really like the cadence here so I thought I'd post it here on Tumblr anyway! Might as well get smth out of it to enjoy yanno?
