Beggar's Banquet

[Leetah]

Miles away from the gargoyle-guarded towers of the Vampire's Tavern, the city of Vectis slumbered. Separated from that venerable establishment by an ancient tract of forest considered too wild for travel, Vectis had developed in the Tavern's shadow for centuries; first a village settled by earth-worshippers, then a town taken over by modernity, it was now a city ripe with mystery...and inevitable danger. Though manifested in the usual ways, the danger wreathing Vectis' alleys pertained to more than thieves and murderers. Vectis, some whispered, harbored secrets...Vectis harbored things left over from another age. And because of its proximity to the Tavern, the city and its people believed these whispers...

...As well they should. Even as daily routines ground on in Vectis, those whispered things slunk back and forth between city and tavern. Those whispered, dangerous things came to and fro in the night...and often, they visited the boarded-up building on Fall Street.

That building had been gutted some years ago; now it was no more than an open interior, cathedral-like in its trimmings and sheer capacity. And through a pair of steel-riveted doors yawned that room…cavernous, dark, and teeming with the beautiful refuse of an autophagus city.

Splintered light cloaked the place in diffused color, igniting the white flames of faces with a sickly radiance that darted and shivered. The concrete floor, scarred and pitted like smallpox skin, was nearly invisible beneath the crush of bodies…all writhing, all warm, all desperately attempting to ward off those sinister thoughts that gnaw at the brain when motion ceases. Small, round windows like blind eyes peered down into the swarm, their dirty panes spiderwebbed with cracks and splinters. Skeins of lead piping, once the framework for larger mosaics and glorious glass pictures, hung high, bunched in sad tangles. The skittering light’s source, a garish mesh of dusky neon lasers and fluorescent bulbs, seemed the fire around which gathered those hollow-eyed moths…impossibly fragile beneath their cautionary camouflage.

Issuing forth from crackling speakers, the music wound on like an insidious serpent; its low, heady hiss promised sympathy and release. From beneath the sweet cacophony of drum and synthesizer, voices rose in poignant accompaniment…sometimes calling, sometimes crying—and always edged in that slow, sure attrition afforded them by existence. Individuals all, and all the same…identical victims of fate and fortune huddled together in an effort to stave off the wintry touch of reality.

Near a worn crate-table, a conversation began in earnest between two such casualties…

[Asphodel]

Asphodel listened lazily, her eyes half-lidded against the apoplectic bursts of light.

Neither one—neither twenty-something, lion-eyed youth—had managed to interest her. Well, not really, anyway. They were certainly nice to look at, as they lounged across the crate; sharp jawlines and pretty, perpetual scowls lent them an enticingly edgy appeal. And Asphodel liked to linger along such edges. Their conversation was deliciously pretentious, full of references to artsy, obscure things…but neither one of them had any real intrigue left in his human shell. Neither boy, though heart-rendingly handsome, had enough life to suit Asphodel’s tastes. Self-encouraged attrition was this generation’s mode du jour, their fashionably fast path to the cynicism virus—and the symptoms showed.

Their eyes, though unusually (beautifully) yellow, were flat. The depth behind them had been filled up, like many others in Vectis. Those people didn’t believe in things like Asphodel. Too much self-absorption and too heavy an investment in America’s material culture rendered boys like these devoid of dreams—shallow-breathing creatures content with their lack of soul. Fantasies and fairytales didn’t exist, and myths belonged solely to scholars like Joseph Campbell. But this was all simply in their opinion…

…Because in reality, things like Asphodel absolutely existed. One of those things watched Asphodel as she watched the boys, in fact. And she knew it. She didn’t particularly care—not now, at least—but she knew, and her hackles rose. A slight curling of her upper lip was the only other sign that she’d been, momentarily, moved to emotion. It was enough to attract a set of yellow eyes, though; Asphodel smiled as she sensed one of the boy’s desire flare to life.

She turned slowly to meet his gaze. As she’d noticed before, he was a gorgeous human specimen. And she liked her humans gorgeous. He didn't immediately move, didn't speak, but Asphodel learned (in the intervening moments) what his name was, who his friend was, where he slept every evening…

It was this last bit that Asphodel wanted. Though she’d always refrained from approaching anyone in this place, she’d certainly approached some away from the heady music and perpetual eruptions of neon light. She’d found, over the years, that she could play with her pretty humans much, much easier if she appeared to them in other places on other nights…away from Fall Street and the other things like her.

The boy’s interest now piqued and his information filed deftly away in Asphodel’s mind, she slipped from him with a Cheshire smile. It was that simple. That harmless…for now. She wasn’t interested in what either boy could offer her tonight, but she knew they’d come in handy later. She knew where one slept, and she’d take advantage of the fact the next time she felt her hunger uncurl.

At the moment, though, she couldn’t be bothered to bother with them; she left them to their conversation and their crate-table. Back into the moving crush of people, back among warm bodies, she slithered through the throngs. The music had all but hypnotized them—their limbs moving snake-like to the reverberating echoes of Source Direct’s “Call and Response.” It’s where she liked to hide after tagging another toy, this undulating mass of dancers. She knew she’d be on the boy’s mind until she decided to go see him, and so for now, she was free to do as she pleased. She was free to hide from that other thing like her.

She wasn’t sure who (or what) it was, or why it had been watching…and she couldn’t yet decide if she should care.

[Alandor Fydmere]

It was so cold, here out in the world again. Long had he dwelled deep underground, somewhere close the inferno. Here it was cold, and his body.. lacking the human will to warm itself.. was accepting the timely life of the undead on the surface. Among humans.. they had the warmth, they held all the warmth and all the life.. like stars.. so bright, warm, and well.. temporary. A smirk fluttered across his lips like a wild butterfly through grass in spring. He humored himself, who else was still around to humor him? Those ghouls he rose to do his bidding? Such dryness.. so immune to the daily quandaries of existence. Oh, ennui.. another smirk.. yes, clichés today.. so many. As he thought, well.. off amid these people, yet alone.. from the corner of his eye.. he caught sight of a most attractive specimen.. an undead witch, behemoth of good taste.. one of his own. The man whose arms slung about as serpents among the branches of trees that filled the jungles of India.. so slithering, so serpentine, so ancient and cold.. he found himself perched, as if life had come to something numb.. a bear in early spring. His teeth clashed against each other.. oh yes, he was still a predator.. another smirk, the kind he was known for.. at least, while he was alive..

She was a predator herself, a seductress, a mistress of the prey.. Come here little weak minded fools! He couldn’t help but watch.. watch the curves of her body as the moved so perfectly, so fluid, so sensual.. and he was mesmerized.. not just by her, but by her lure, her prey, and the scene that unfolded with such mastery. The lazy serpentine returned, as he stayed.. as she seduced..

Then she entered the fury of the dancing horde.. and he began to move.. circling the mass, as a lion(ess) circling the open grasslands.. waiting for his moment to approach.. and take the warmth from the bodies so crushed and heaving.. to feel human.. yes, the warmth of the masses.. to remind him of the underground.

[Leetah]

The Tavern was waking.

The Tavern was waiting.

In those long moments that hang veil-like between sunset’s sleep and night’s ascension, an almost imperceptible twitching of reality began…

An enormous tract of forest blanketing an otherwise barren plain seemed to throw off the wet weight of what little light touched it. Never had the sun shone fully on that ancient, knotted army of vegetation; the land in its entirety had taken on the sheen of perpetual twilight. Suspended in time and splashed by a soap-skin gleam of concealed sun, the forest was a place that knew no hours. And it had been the perfect place to build the Tavern…long, long ago when strange hands built strange buildings for strange purposes.

Like a waking animal, the Tavern stirred. It had endured centuries of seasons, rousing and sleeping as it had when mysterious, magical things lurked its hallways. And though it was protected by said hulking forest, now and forever, it seemed to sense evening’s arrival—it rippled, cat-like, as the first cold stars appeared.

To the west, a nearly dead-calm stretch of water lapped at the stony shore. Hundreds of meters wide and deceptively docile, the lake held mysteries of its own; its bank riddled with caves and guarded by an impenetrable ring of dark, warped trees, the lake rarely revealed it treasures…or victims. Unsettling and often wreathed in ropes of fog, that mirror-like body of water was surrounded in disconcerting myths as old as some of the first human civilizations—the perfect partner for the Vampire’s Tavern. And like the Tavern, it had been taught to wake and sleep…it had been taught to respond to dark things. Joining its partner in natural rhythm (just as it did every night), the lake slipped into a gentle heaving that belied its day-long state of stillness.

Situated in the heart of the forest, the Tavern seemed to breathe in the dark. Although its cracked and peeling façade faced prying eyes by day, it shook this off at the advance of shadows. Graced with gables and turrets, sharp edges and gargoyle-perch precipices, the tavern was a place of astounding beauty. Dark wood and dark stone lent it a decidedly Old World feel, one it managed to maintain even as the city threatened to creep closer…

…And closer it had crept. The creatures who infrequently visited knew this. The things who found respite in the Tavern’s inner chambers knew this. The Tavern itself seemed to know this. But none cared. Like Asphodel, the others things saw Vectis as a place to pick followers…a marketplace burgeoning with slaves of all kinds, servants of all sorts, and—very, very rarely—companions rich with world experience. Asphodel had yet to find one of these, though; returning to the Tavern every dawn, she complained to its listening walls and confided in its silence.

And it had begun to know her much better than she thought. It was awake now, tonight, and—as usual—awaited Asphodel’s arrival.

[Asphodel]

Asphodel knew it was time to leave. And not just because the watcher-thing moved.

After the moon swept across the sky, illuminating (and laying bare) whole stretches of cityscape and clusters of evening adventurers—and after its light dimmed a little in anticipation of dawn—she often found herself moving back through the wide expanse of wilderness separating Vectis from the Tavern. Like a little black bat or ruby-beaked bird, she returned eternally to roost; every morning, before the sun’s rosy glow burst fully into fire, she swept back through the old forest and into an interior Tavern chamber.

Some mornings, though…some mornings she paused just outside the great studded doors to watch the sun rise. Contrary to popular belief, things like Asphodel didn’t dissolve along with night’s shadows. Light eyes and light skin and the ethereal imprint of untold years made navigating daytime an annoying and slightly uncomfortable—but not wholly undoable—task. On those mornings, the first few fingers of sunlight would glance off the forest, the Tavern, and its lone patron like a dimly glittering net. And it was beautiful.

The wide porch on which Asphodel often stood wrapped around the front of the Tavern like a wooden serpent, sided by latticework heavy with curling vines. From behind their leaves Asphodel watched the forest rebuff much of the sunlight, allowing only wispy streamers to penetrate the verdant gloom. More often than sunlight, storms colored the landscape. Of course, Asphodel much preferred these to blue-sky days, and she’d forego sleep to watch a storm rage while closeted away in some deep, curtained, first-floor window-seat.

The first floor was her favorite. A majority of the main hall was constructed of dark, deep-stained wood (by an owner long-since dead), and now boasted no less than a dozen sumptuous chairs upholstered in deep red. Taking up much of the back wall and yawning like a toothless leviathan, an enormous fireplace smoldered when Asphodel saw fit to light it. And on a night like this, after she’d tagged a particularly pretty set of boys under the watchful eye of something like herself, she thought it might be an indulgence she deserved.

After all, it had been quite some time since she’d laid eyes on something exactly like herself; she knew the strange creatures who visited Vectis (and, rarely now, the Tavern), but she didn’t know this thing that watched her tonight. She could sense how similar they were…but she had been taught to be wary.

So wary she would be.

He (and she had a feeling it was a “he”) may have smacked of predatory stealth, but—as is the case with many predators, it seems—the female of the species was more skillful still. Asphodel simply waited for his attention to drift…and it did, thanks to the rapid-fire blooming of colors and chords and mortal warmth…before vanishing.

Or what would pass for vanishing. She learned long ago the intricacies of time and space and matter; she knew how to do things requiring ancient knowledge and ancient power…and ancient blood. It was time to replenish this blood now—Asphodel could feel it as she coalesced again near the edge of the forest. In the distance, Vectis blinked and shimmered; Asphodel smiled once before turning…her eyes seeing deep into the forest, seeking the outline of her waiting lair.

[Alandor Fydmere]

She disappeared, his wanton desires were sedated by the music and the flush skin of the living.. and she disappeared… but scents always linger. So he stepped out, out into the air.. his leather loafers, straight from the Mediterranean coast, adorned with silver, inscribed in ancient lettering, carried his silent feet through the doorway. Stingray leather, the texture was perfect.. the moonlight clashed with the curves and the arches of the perfected texture. He was a gilded beast, one with the sons of the ancients.. some Roman child, some Italian antediluvian monster.. where Christ once walked, he still walked.. out of the door, through the doorway, this man, this caller of the undead, reeking of spices from the orient, and the birth of voodoo slaves.. his hands were protected within fitted leather gloves, hiding the arcane ink that lathered them with all the power he could possess. He walked out beneath the moonlight, and he stopped.. and let the scents of the night pass through the air, as a hunter.. a hunter of blood, a hunter of life and death, and in this moment a hunter of interest, a hunter of beauty.

He could smell her, in the chaotic battle of scents that were cascading within the night air, of the humans and the undead and creatures not often spoke of, some deeper and darker then even he.. the scents that left the waters and the scents that came from grates holding infernal things below ground.. amid that, all of the rabble, of the death and fiendish things.. he smelled her. He smelled her floating through the air in silence.

“...care to walk with me?”

He said it low, he said it perfectly enunciated, and he knew she would hear him. As if, even though she was hidden afar.. as if her mind, and her warning, and her ears had left this place. He knew she could hear how he dragged out the letters, and put so much emphasis on the last..

His smile was devilish, it was famous among the denizens.. it wasn’t mad, or violent.. it was dangerous, like a one night stand, or protection ripping.. it was the question.. “Do I stop?” He waited there.. letting the words ring, and the scent, and her sight.. her sight, she could see.. if not with her eyes but with her feelings..

He spanned aeons, and with that.. he learned patience. Why rush when you have forever? And why hold back when each chance may be the last?

[Asphodel]

She froze.

“Care to walk…?” he’d said. And, obviously, he’d said it to her.

But he wasn’t supposed to know in what direction she’d gone, in what direction she planned to go—he wasn’t supposed to know she’d gone at all. Not for a while, anyway…and it irritated her. It set her on edge, his uncanny ability to sense her presence; it made her anxious, and she didn’t like it. Being in such close proximity to something whose powers very clearly rivaled hers was cause for alarm. True, the Tavern harbored old and fae-descended things, but Asphodel feared none. She didn’t need to; instead, she often spied on—and sometimes played hostess for—those strange, wonderful individuals who’d crept through window and door for a number of decades.

In fact, the Tavern was little more than a burned-out shell when she’d stumbled across it (so long, long ago). Though she couldn’t be sure, Asphodel suspected it to be the result of something sinister; the Tavern’s blackened, jagged remains evinced nothing of lightning damage. No…rather, they reminded Asphodel of devious work. They reminded her of the work sometimes done by primordial creatures, blood-drinkers and blood-worshippers born before the time of Christ. And to say it raised her suspicions would be an understatement.

But after deciding to claim the place as her own, after watching it from afar (uneventfully) for very nearly a year, Asphodel’s apprehension eventually disappeared. She didn’t have time to examine the details of the Tavern’s downfall, after that; in fact, she never had the time, it seemed. She’d simply had too much work to do…too many things to restore and restock in order to attract others of her ilk.

She was the one who’d chosen, with a most discerning eye, the massive collection of liquors and distillations. She was the one who’d bought the deep red-stained bar, the black leather stools with black wooden lion’s feet, the curio cabinet with grotesque souvenirs from countries the world over, the egg-like human skulls capped with claret candles…the floor-length (faintly French) windows, the sweeping crimson curtains.

And all of these things called to her now, as she stood poised to melt into the forest’s shadows. They called to her in a voice deeper than the one directed at her now. The Tavern asked her, “will you come home to me?” And this question was far more difficult to ignore than the one the watcher had posed. She could tell though, through her alarm, that he was something worth further inspection. Ridiculous though it seemed, she suspected he was a rather interesting creature—one perhaps fitting into that long-sought “rich with world experience” category…

…But if he wanted to pursue discussion, he’d do it later. In the Tavern. And he’d do away with slimy pretenses before crossing the threshold. After all, it was a sentient place full of old magic, and it was protective of the things who dwelled within. Until such beasts were familiar to it, the Tavern treated every guest with due guardedness.

[Alandor Fydmere]

His words caught her, his words caught her.. and fell, as arrows hitting stronger armor. They fell. They fell.. oh this devilish woman, she was something.. wasn’t she? He had been right to pick her from the crowd, and in those moments of defense.. he understood in that moment, this dwelling of dark creatures.. this sanctuary was hers. It was doubtless now, he walked into her den.. and in this place she was queen. Here was he, standing on her doorstep, standing on her doorstep.. oh, what a most scandalous moment. Here was he, standing before her entrance.. called in by the warmth.

This necromancer, this unclean thing of Byzantium flavor.. farther still perhaps, perhaps Sumer was within his recollection. Perhaps the words tattooed so brilliantly perfect, and unworn yet by the Suns awful rays.. were written in Demotic. Nothing was apparent, nothing outside of the perfectly stitched leather coat that fit so perfectly to his frame. It was hand formed, from the full bodied skin of many past humans.. beaten and died. The flesh of medieval nobility, oh how it would bring him back to simpler days.. walking through stone halls, dancing with maidens, when his fingers dragged across the smooth leather that held what warmth he could grasp close.

He waited there, in that doorway.. before the warmth of her sanctuary.. as it beckoned him to enter.. he waited there.. to enjoy her scent, and to suck in the beautiful collision of his words and thoughts against her shielded mind.. so dedicated to her home.. he waited and enjoyed it. Oh, a fight.. perhaps.. and beauty, where could beauty be found in such a deft and dry world? In little flowers plucked and dying.. and even more, yes.. even more.. in those single anomalies that dwell so perfectly hidden within the world of the weak human carapaces..

She was here, and he smelled.. that scent.. letting his head fall back.. for just a moment.. his black, black, black hair… falling from his face.. his eyes having closed, not giving away the hue of his eyes.. he sucked in one last moment.. enjoying it, as a cook.. so enjoying the creation.. the creation of life sustenance. Was it a challenge? Did she think that she could create beauty more powerful then he?

He turned towards the door.. and fell to the beckoning of her call, wait for her? In the tavern? Was that an order? Or more.. a challenge? Who could turn away? As he turned to enter once more.. to enter once more the warm and welcoming sanctuary.. in the shadows hidden.. his glove came off, hiding from any light that which came to be.. and with movements in the shadow.. he walked past the door.. and entering the music, and the lights, and the beings so fervent.. nothing had changed.. but the thin X drawn across the outer door.. in blood.

[Asphodel]

Tossing her head and raking a few wisps of hair from her face, she finally grinned—albeit icily. The familiarity with which he approached her was not (yet) welcome, and the seductive air he exuded did nothing for her. Not now, anyway; so guarded was Asphodel, so ironclad her head and heart, that she’d been referred to as “the ice witch” oftentimes in the past. But his perseverance tickled her—his willingness to follow and the self-possession he flaunted entertained Asphodel very much.

So much so, in fact, that as she passed through the Tavern’s great, iron-studded doors, she asked it to open. She asked that it allow creatures like her into its main hall (and, perhaps, interior dens) once more…because she had a feeling that where the watcher went, others were sure to follow. And she would so love for the place to teem again; she would so love for others of her kind to find her, discuss the world with her, make unearthly devotees of golden-eyed Vectis boys with her. After all, the growth of Vectis was something else…and she wondered if she and a few others of her kind could make the city believe in dark, fantastical things again.

…But she was looking ahead too far. After kindling the fire (without lifting one white, pianist-delicate finger) and drawing back the drapes so as to better see what lurked outside, she settled behind the bar. Pulling a bottle of something dusty and, as Asphodel noted through the thick glass, blood-red from the shelf behind her, she popped the cork. In one fluid motion, the contents were free from their glass prison—and trickling down the back of Asphodel’s throat. She hadn’t the time (nor the taste) for getting this sort of thing firsthand; stocking it like treasure in the Tavern was the next best method.

The earthy-smelling smoke and mint-copper aftertaste now coating her throat relaxed Asphodel. Such things reminded her of past times spent with the most glorious and, admittedly, magic-permeated individuals she’d ever known. And though she knew some had wandered across deserts and seas and—in some cases—time, she wondered if there were any left now who followed the watcher.

She wondered if other things were watching the watcher. Taking another swig from the bottle, she settled both elbows on the counter and looked out into the darkness beyond. Maybe there were other things watching her, too. Maybe the Tavern and its lake and its rogue mistress were not as detached and alone as they’d been for the last hundred years or so…

[Vice and Virtue]

They'd been asleep a long time. Buried deep beneath soil and stone, cradled in the arms of silk and chains, their blood still and pooling in fine, delicate veins; a spider's work of life just beneath the thin veil of lucid skin. Their chests had been still, their fingers tangled with each other so that thoughts became one thought, and then even that was silence. So much silence to swallow.


They slept because she gave them life, because their hearts would not push blood, their lungs would not take in air, and their minds would not flood with her volatile mix of emotions without her. She slept because there were lifetimes, eons, eternities that she needed to forget. Faces, and places, and hearts that must be returned to dust and ash, and love that must be cut out. Cut out like a cancer that spreads.


They stood now at the edge of the woods; pale, slender figures with skin the color of gleaming bone. Ghostly in the soft moonlight, she stood with her daughters like so much flame and passion, cold now but for the briefest touch, the faintest scent that would push life back into that passive face. Her hair was a riot of thick silken curls, flame-kissed and long enough to drape narrow hips, her eyes like burning glass, brilliantly green and full of a fire that lay banked, smoldering in the heart of coals, waiting for some errant interest. Her daggers were like day and night beside her, one with hair the color of white-gold, sleek and shining as it spilled down her svelte body, her eyes a piercing, Nordic blue full of ice and the budding promise of something darker, sinfully terrifying. The other had sable hair that spilled like shadows around her shoulders, thick and soft waves that concealed the fey tilt of her face, brushed the edges of eyes that gleamed into the night like molten silver, barely flecked with gold. Darkness boiled around them like something beastly and a live, slithering around their legs, dripping from fingers that ended in cat like claws, curved and razor sharp. With the softest sigh, Brianna lifted her face to the wind and let the scent of the tavern wash over her. Cool, damp, secluded, and full of a slithering consciousness that plucked at the strings of the abyss rolling around her, brought eyes more ancient than evil and good around to stare into the heart of such a place. With her daughter's hands in her own, she left the woods behind with silent steps, bare feet slowly remembering the feel of the ground pressed to her skin. She was so hungry, so starved for sensation. They'd been asleep for such a long time...


But now they were awake. Alive, and vital, and full of darkness. So very, very awake.

[Alandor Fydmere]

Just a slight does would do, wouldn’t it? Laudanum was the perfect and disastrous force that often took hold of such a foul being as he. Though here and now? Oh, he had to be here and now. His gloved hand pressed gently to his face as he leaned forward, hid there in the shadows of the vast.. and coughed. Everything was awakening now, all the dark dark things that had fell dormant, they were coming, oh they were coming and he was perfectly keen to stand here and watch the birth of gods from the abyss and changelings that had no place anywhere else, no where else.. surely here was the best place to be, to be alive and awake and breathing.. okay, perhaps not alive.. he laughed, he was moving now.. silent, silent as any viper pushing through the soft grasses of Africa.. there was prey, Christ there was prey to be had. And then suddenly he was out, out of the shadows, out of the hinterlands and farther places still.. a vampire, here.. her. He was out and suddenly, as he stepped out from within the shadows, his perfectly sculptured shoes began to tap. Tap. Tap. The soft leather, carved from those waterdwellers hides.. tapping. As he moved so fluidly and let his coat come sliding off his shoulders, off his arms.. into a chair.. and he came walking forward.. his body was thin, yet tall.. the body of a Nordic warrior, with the direct design of a man from the lands of Roma, or at least where Roma once stood..

Beneath the jacket, his body was held beneath silk, silk so rich with smells that passed aeons that it would remind you: Vampires don’t sweat. Of all the beings in the world, these specific ones.. these undead creatures.. stopped sweating the moment their body was filled with the poison. And this fluid beast came walking, tapping the floor as he did, as a serpent slithering.. his shoulders rocking, his arms hanging as pythons from Jungle trees high above.. his skin was dark, it was olive.. hues that held something fantastically known by so few.. of life. And as he walked, fracturing reality danced about his being.. shattering time, if only for a moment, disjointed reality.

His eyes were closed, as he moved, as he walked towards her.. still rife with that damned smile, the smile that left so haunting a flash against the eyes of victims that spanned generations, kingdoms..

She sat there, so smug.

Smug.

And he stopped before her, so unguarded.. so free. His gloved hand came to rub across his lower lip, from crack to lull.. before he spoke.

“I have not seen one of your kind in a very long time.”

He looked to the side, eyes still closed.. and they slowly opened, at the moment his chin ran in the same direction as his shoulder from his chest. Now that they were closer, it was evident that his throat had not been used for speech in so long that it almost came with an ache, it also explained why his words were so perfectly enunciated.. they were slowly forced out.

“It’s been some time since you’ve seen one of your own kind, and yet.. you run. Fear?”

His head moved lazily, and he came to look upon her once more..

[Asphodel]

She couldn’t have imagined, in a million years, that her question would be answered in the single blink of an arctic eye. She couldn’t have imagined that after so long (so very, very long), those dark things she’d missed so much would stride through ancient woodland in so short a span of time. But they were. They were…and the deep pulsing of their power—the primordial thumping substituted for every beast’s mortal heart once changed—began to sound in the hall. It was something Asphodel had waited a century to hear...

...And after several moments of listless staring (and even more listless drinking), she began to take notice.

Rousing herself from the particularly thick stretch of thought in which she’d been mired, Asphodel focused on the forest beyond. Her ivory skin prickled despite the fire’s insistent heat…but it was a delicious prickle, one triggered by the stirring of celestial breath and the Tavern’s own easing. There was no trace of the anxiety, no crimson-tinged alarm with which she’d been wreathed previously. No; the lulling reverberations of a primeval presence were well-known to Asphodel, even though the being (…beings?) from which they radiated were not. One thing, though—one thing she was certain of: whatever snaked its way through her door tonight would be far more interesting than those storybook beasts of Vectis.

Before Asphodel could clearly discern the three ghostly figures, however, her attention was dragged unceremoniously from forest to foreground. She’d heard the tapping minutes before—she’d suspected the creature behind that sound, too—but the arrival of even older beings had torn her attention away. Now, though…now he was closer…he was in the Tavern, approaching her bar, dribbling forthright words from his serpent’s mouth. She wasn’t sure if she cared for him much, but the unspoken rules of her kind stayed her hand; besides, she hadn’t spoken to another ancient vampire in years.

And she’d missed it.

Cocking one raven brow—and nearly laughing when he suggested fear—she propped her chin on her hands and rested her elbows again on the bar.

“You’ll have to forgive my earlier disinterest; it’s not often I find another of my kind worth extra breath. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t spoken to another in so long…”

Inspecting a set of curved, glassy nails, she shrugged nonchalantly, “Of course, I can see you’re not of the usual Vectis stock, so I suppose I should be glad you followed. And did you notice, by the way, that there are more of us coming?”

Slipping out from behind the bar before he could answer, Asphodel pulled at the heavy curtains veiling one floor-length window. Looking out into the banks of shadow, the pools of pitch-black night and dark greenery of the Tavern’s grounds, she smiled; more of them were, indeed, coming. And they were old…they were so very old.

[Vice and Virtue]

Like one, Brianna and her daughters left the cool embrace of the wood behind to cross the narrow gap of empty land, svelte figures deceptively delicate and ethereal as they mounted the steps and slipped inside an old haunt reawakened. She paused in the doorway to stare at the tavern's sole two occupants, something flickering through quiet, dark eyes while her daughters fanned out to explore the room with careful, wary expressions.


Her daughters moved like the predators they were, sleek cats that sinuously found their way in and out of the shadows, darkness the old sigh of a lover whispering things along their pale skins. Like a matched pair they returned to Brianna, who reached up to slide her hands softly down their long manes, each woman resting her cheek briefly on Brianna's shoulder before they moved off to find their own seats; Brona curling in the shadows with all that long, pale gold hair tangling around her, while Sasamh draped herself across the nearest chair bathed in waves of dancing light.


Brianna closed her eyes, the briefest flicker of coal colored lashes over the high, sharp curve of her cheeks while memories forced their way back in with a painful rake of emotion, the shadows that licked and coiled along her legs, reaching up to tease the tips of slender fingers hissing in sheer delight. When she opened her eyes again, they were full of emerald flame, the softest gleam of fire dancing, tumbling in and around itself behind those lashes, and like no time had passed, her mouth curved with a familiar smirk, her hands drifting over table and chair, running viciously sharp claws across varnished as she moved deeper inside, ignoring the man to focus lightly on Asphodel.


"You're all that's left here? I smell no one else in all this wood and shadow."

[Asphodel]

She didn’t wait for Meric’s response—indeed, there was no time (nor need) to; as soon as Asphodel’s “more of us” left her lips, Brianna and her daughters slipped through the Tavern’s great, studded doors. And “slip” was an apt description, as the three preternatural beauties made not a single sound as they entered. “Slip,” Asphodel recalled with a smirk, was a verb oft-attached to those of her kind—to those who moved like great feline hunters, talons concealed and eyes half-mast. Their fluidity of movement was a signal, an unspoken cue to those nearby that what lay beneath white skin and vivid eyes was not normal.

Running a hand through the folds of one wine-colored curtain, Asphodel turned away from Meric to watch the trio. Not normal, indeed…but graceful, of course, and ethereal. They all were, every individual in this Tavern—and she couldn’t remember how long it had been since creatures such as these crept through its large, dark hallways. The Tavern itself now seemed aware of this; the air inside shimmered a little, the darkness outside retreated a little, and Asphodel was able, for the first time in decades, to relax a little.

She dipped her head when Brianna spoke, a subtle sign of respect for one as ancient as (or perhaps more ancient than) herself. Eyes wandering across the admittedly small group now gathered in the Tavern, Asphodel shrugged a little. She could sense the trailing disappointment, the vague expectation and old familiarity in Brianna’s voice, and she wished then that her answer could have been more heartening. She wished she could have drawn back a curtain to reveal a whole host of dark, decadent vampires…but as it stood now, there were indeed only five of them.

“Yes. And as you’ve all arrived at the same time, we now constitute the largest group I’ve seen in half a century…” Asphodel smiled politely, grey eyes glistening. “In fact, prior to this evening, I’ve not seen another one of us in a very long time…”

[Vice and Virtue]

She glanced away from Asphodel, willing the brief flash of sorrow to spiral back down where it came from, the shadows that danced at her feet slithering beneath the hem of her dress to taste regret, longing on her pale skin. There was no hope for it now, she would not be the one to seek Krisztinya, or Odie out, to wonder what became of Myzery and half a dozen others. It was a life that had long since died, buried beneath the centuries.

Shrugging old ghosts off, quite literally a sinuous lift and fall of narrow shoulders, she returned Asphodel's respectful greeting, the faintest hint of a smile lurking at the edges of her pale mouth.

"That doesn't surprise me, I've been asleep longer. And who knows what has become of the others..."

She finally found a seat to her liking, collapsing in it with an innate sense of grace, a gown of pale white hanging in nearly translucent layers around legs she curled beneath her.

"Maybe they'll hear the old call of this place, maybe they won't. It's different now, a stronger, stranger flavor."

She waved a hand in the general direction of the town beyond the copse of trees and brush, like a portal to a newer world. She had yet to venture down there, didn't even know if she would. Maybe she would send her daughters instead. She tilted her head and studied Asphodel, speculation coming and going through emerald eyes like flaring coals.

"I've never met you before. Did you hunt at Mystic? Or are you a child of this place only?"