vojvode | [oom] Sunshine, lakeside

Rae runs through the dark, red sneakers leaving tracks in the snow. She's not dressed for the cold, but it hardly registers. Returning to the kitchen for her coat doesn't even occur to her. Even if the stupidity of someone running after a vampire does occur to her, she doesn't turn or slow - apart from what is necessary for running over uneven, snow-covered ground in the dark.

She can feel him, somewhere out in front of her, as she comes down the slope towards the lake shore. After her snow-muffled footsteps, the crackling of ice under her tread as she reaches the edge of the lake felt unnaturally loud, bringing her back to herself.

Rae turned to follow the shore, towards where it neared the trees. Moving forward more cautiously.

He shadows her, literally, pacing her from deep in the treeline. His thoughts brush against hers, warmer than any vampire's thoughts have a right to be.

He has her on ground of his choosing now, and the advantage is one he does not intend to squander.

He draws her farther along the shore, down to the inlet, where the sand is white and soft, and the air doesn't seem to know it's winter in Scotland.

She moves with the caution, but not for fear of mis-stepping on the uneven ground. The night to her eyes is not dark. The lights from the bar behind her and from the clouded stars above her are plenty. She is looking for the darkness that her eyes won't pierce - shadow not cast by any light - the kind she only ever finds about him.

Rae can feel his presence, the alignment pulling her first towards the trees, then along further, towards the place where the cold, ice-rimmed pebbles of a Scottish lake's shore give way to soft sand that carries no trace of frost. Even the air is warmer - and she finds herself glad of it, for she had begun to wish for her coat.

He draws the two air masses together, mingling hot humid air and the frozen together with the twist of his fingers. The fog that forms is thick and fine, obscuring the landscape until they're both surrounded by a sea of white. Far above, the almost full moon spreads an unearthly glow through the mist, and muted shadows spread around her.

He brushes a hand through the ends of her hair, and disappears into the mist again, listening to the sound of her heart beating loud in his ears.

She turns even as his hand disappears, looking out into the mist that even her Dark Sight cannot pierce.

"I know you're here," she says, out into the moon-white night. Though her heart-rate is elevated, it's from the run and the cold - for all the potential fears she has in her, they are as scattered as the mist right now. Rae looks upon the night, knowing what monsters inhabit it, and does not look away.

What's more, she knows those monsters for the people they are.

"Your move."

A hollow forms around her in the fog, and she can feel the weight of his presence behind her.

"Do you tire of the chase so quickly?"

"Who's tiring of it?" she says, greatly daring as she steps back against the presence behind her.

Clearly she has taken leave of her senses.

"You're not running."

He dips his chin to whisper next to her ear.

"Perhaps the chase has taken on a whole new dimension."

Rae smiles despite herself, despite any instinct of self-preservation, despite the nerve-jangling sense of there being a vampire in close proximity to her.

"Part of that ceremony you were talking about, perhaps. I knew you'd not be very good at being prey. You forget to run."

He turns and fights. She understands that, in a way. While everything in her wanted to tell her to run away, she was the one that took her ally's hand and ran towards the fight against overwhelming odds.

"I did forget. You distracted me."

There's a lilt of amusement in his voice. The dark caress of his thoughts dances around the limits of her mind.

"Are you going to steal my heart now? With your bare hands?"

She can feel his mind against hers. Like darkness dancing at the edge of a bonfire's circle of light. But at his question, she pulls away, physically and mentally.

"No," she says. Her hands come up, as though pushing the mist before her aside or in denial.

The memories are still fresh, the feeling of sinking her arm elbow-deep into the mire of Bo's chest, and wrenching out the heart soaked in so much evil that it had long ago gotten bored with normal evils and had to invent new kinds to keep it entertained. How it burned in her hand, melting to drip, sizzling black against the concrete.

He watches, circling around her in the mist, drinking up the memory he could not pluck from the depths, but can easily skim from the surface of her thoughts.

"That is who you are now, Rae. Foul creature though I may be, that is not who I am. Make no mistake. I am just as corrupt. Just as condemned by God."

"But I can't be that person," Rae says, shaking her head, her treacherous hands finding each other. "I can't live as that person."

She's a baker. A feeder of people. Making people happier and more hopeful because they have a place to go and good food to eat. Yes, she has admitted to herself that she must go on fighting, but she will not let go of her life as a baker. She needs the act of creation to balance the destruction.

"You aren't him. You have never been him."

He could have been like Bo to her, the night they first met, with her arm twisted behind her and her knife stolen. But he wasn't. He never had been.

"But you could just as easily destroy me, with a flick of your hand. Isn't that the truth of things now?"

"Like it's so easy as all that," she says, turning to face him. "Could and would are completely different things, and you know it."

She is certainly aware that the ability to destroy the other is mutual, here.

When Rae says it, her voice is level. "But, for what it's worth, I mean you no harm."

There is a long silence after she says the words, and the void in the mist grows broader until the full moon is shining down on both of them.

He's changed clothes, wearing a more modern attire, suspenders over a dark shirt that is open at the throat. His hair is pulled back and he's still wearing the dark glasses. His hands are tucked into the pockets of his trousers and his sleeves are rolled up.

He tilts his head, looking at her. It's a strange expression on his face, this softness. She's seen it before, though, standing in her kitchen.

"So why do we hunt one another, then? What is the purpose of the chase?"

He'a a figure of darkness, even in the reflected, silvered sunlight of the full moon. The shadows he casts shudder and murmur to themselves, edged in deep blackness.

Rae tells herself she must have lost her senses completely, because she finds herself not liking that he's standing there, with her unable to see his eyes behind the dark circles of glass.

"I don't even know," she says, quiet, after a moment. "You... I can feel myself drawn after you, though it goes against every instinct of survival I have. And... you come to me, so often when I'm in the kitchens, baking."

Why?

Why does the day chase the night, and the night in turn chase the day? Why do they seek that which is, at the same time, what they can harm the easiest and what they are weakest to resist?

"Yes. Perhaps you are right," he says, answering her unspoken thoughts.

"You tempt me with things I can never have again."

Light.

Love.

She tempts him?

With what, she wonders. And what about him tempts her? He's a vampire. Dark, deadly, unknowable. Perhaps it's something like the temptation to play last-across on a railroad track, while the ground shakes from the on-coming train. Adrenaline. Fight or flight. Sex and death.

('It is the warmth of life and the heat of death.')

Is it that simple?

She hesitates before she speaks. "Never?"

His gaze falls from her face, and the anger that always exists beneath the surface moves across his features, only the wake of the leviathan rippling the surface. His body half turns from her, and the fog swirls around them.

"Only the illusion thereof is granted me, and there is no sustenance in illusions."

"I don't deal in illusions," she says, almost musingly, watching the night fog drift in swirls and eddies. "I couldn't. I'm a horrible liar - everything I think shows up on my face."

She does, ironically, deal in sustenance.

He smirks, cutting a glance at her. The same softness lingers around his eyes.

"So why then are we drawn to one another? What -- sustenance do we seek?"

A faint, dry grin may be seen as she shakes her head, looking down at the dark ground. "Maybe we're both just severely unbalanced in the head."

Or not just in the head.

"If only it were so simple," he muses, watching her more intently when her gaze falls.

This is dangerous territory for him, he knows. He cannot help himself, even after all these centuries. The memory of dark hair and emerald eyes falls across his sight, and he closes his eyes, trying to hold onto her fleeting image just for another moment.

It's gone as quickly as it came, and he sighs in frustration.

"Tell me what you want from me," he growls, and whether the question is of the ghost or the woman, it's unclear.

"I wish I knew," Rae says, quiet, still looking out into the darkness, eventually lifting her gaze to follow the shadowy forms of trees at the nearer edge of the forest. In the shimmering darkness of their leaf shadows, she can hear them sing of their yearning love for the sun that guides their days, while their roots stretch down and embrace the cool, sweet darkness beneath the earth.

She can hear the frustration in his voice - knows it is the same as her own.

"I don't know what I want from you, what I'm chasing you for," she says, shifting her eyes to his as she steps forward. "If I knew, I'd tell you, and not just say because you chased me first. I know it wouldn't be true. Not really."

"You've... frightened me half out of my wits and threatened me... st... bought a kiss from me for the return of my knife... you've talked to me, trusted me, told me about the pain you carry from your past, and trusted me not to betray you to security when I said I would find you sustenance... And sometimes I swear I've known you longer than I have, like I met you a long time ago and just can't really remember... and I have no idea why you do any of this - what you want from me that makes you do these things."

She shakes her head, her voice dry with irritation and emotional weariness. "You're everything I'm not, because I can't be like you and still be myself. And you say you can never be like me... But here we are. Both chasing, both being chased. Not knowing why."

He cannot look away from her steady gaze, and the memories of their brief history flicker across his mind like images from one of Edison's magic lanterns, vivid and yet, remote.

As she speaks, the distance between them grows smaller, without him ever taking a step closer to her. Where he was a few paces away, now he is standing, looking down into her face.

"I will not lie to you, Rae. I find myself -- craving your presence. At first, just the sound of your voice. Perhaps a glimpse of your hair, perhaps that will satisfy this longing. But each time, it is not enough."

His hand rises and his fingertips touch her temple, weaving into her hair, his palm coming to cup her skull as his nails graze her scalp oh so lightly.

"Each time I leave you, the hunger grows. It is -- as if the dawn herself has come down to walk beside me."

She leans her head against his touch, as though it were not the hand of a body wherein no life resides.

"You know my feelings," she says. Rae has never been good at talking about her feelings. Too often they are too conflicted to be set into words.

Dawn is her time of day. The rebirth of light, and the ending of darkness. Hope, and light, and life, and everything she is fighting for. But she can't deny that she feels drawn to him.

She doesn't know whether these feelings for him are temptation or love or simply longing for that which she doesn't have, her dark mirror. But she knows that with the night comes so much more than what can be found by day, that in its own way, the darkness can be more comforting than the light. Brutally honest, yes, and unapologetic. But real. As real and as capable of warmth and kindness as the light, shining all the brighter for coming from the darkness, like the sea of stars on a moonless night.

"Your presence gives me... things I never knew I needed."

Rae knew of her love for the light, but he is a physical embodiment of her desire for the dark. Her desire, perhaps, for some sort of balance. Or simply for him. She wishes she knew which, and wishes she could deny the feeling that this can't end well.

He holds her in the palm of his hand. Not just her fragile skull, but the life blood flowing through her, calling to him, making his senses thrum in resonance. Hunger does not begin to describe the craving he is feeling. But he keeps it in check. For her.

His fingertips caress against her skin, scribing gentle circles, stroking and savouring the expression on her face.

"I suspect you will lure me to my death, and yet," he breathes, tipping her chin up so he can look down into her face. "And yet, I will follow. Wherever you lead me."

"I would not knowingly lead you to your death," she says quietly, her blue eyes gazing up into the darkness of his own, not even hesitating as she would have, just a handful of weeks ago.

So much has changed, these last six months of her life. Her life? Six months ago was the first plunge into a life as far removed from her own life in the sunlit world as possible. A life full of darkness, dread and desire, one she feared losing herself to, even as she sought it out.

Rae had not come through these last few months unscathed; there were holes and lumps and strange knots in her makeup that hadn't been there before, but she was healing. She was whole.

Whole, and healing in this time of peace Rae knew wouldn't last. She would be out in that dark world again soon, when others came to claim the hunting territory left vacant when she had destroyed Bo. She will soon be doing horrible things again, shattering herself again, finding out further horrible things she is capable of doing, needing to heal again. Fighting the dark again, for the sake of those that still live wholly in daylight, as she had, though it is the dark that she desires, that makes her heart hurt so.

"Don't let me lead you," she whispers. "I can't be sure of where I'm going."

He laughs, low and quiet under his breath, a rich sound that echoes around them in the fog and across the water.

"You are like the warm wind off the ocean, whispering promises of a far away paradise. Torment. Sweet, sweet torment."

He bends his head as he speaks, both hands cradling her face now, and his brow almost resting against hers. His eyes play over the finest details of her face, as if he could read her thoughts by counting and recounting her eyelashes.

(It is the torment beforehand that adds that savor...)

"Torment is not my intent," she says, quiet but completely serious. "Ever."

(But it never tastes as good if you make them go mad.)

"It shouldn't be torment; it's not paradise at all. You were right, that time."

To victory, he had said, and thus to hell.

He listens to the whisper of her thoughts, gazing into her eyes, reliving those terrible moments with her. The air around them grows colder, the mists returning to swirl around them. He has seen many things far more terrible. He has committed atrocities in the name of his God and in spite of Him.

He does not quite understand the emotions he's tasting, but he is not pulling away.

"You seek refuge then. In darkness."

In him.

She is very young in comparison, when set beside him. Events trifling to him are still Earth-shattering to her. Her soul is still recovering from its first set of rents and tears. "Possibly. Maybe. I don't even know. Refuge, balance."

(A really good wall. Very wall-like. Immovable. Solid)

"Someone I might turn to, when the light threatens to overflow and burn me out."

His thumb strokes her cheek and his head falls to one side as he regards her quietly for a long moment.

Despite all he has seen, despite all he has done, there is, at the core of him, something still vulnerable. An iota of humanity that longs for all the things a human longs for: Companionship. Solace. Trust. It is that part of him that always draws him back to their company, even when he knows they will turn from him the first time he reveals his true nature.

It is that part of him that thinks, maybe -- just maybe -- she is not like them.

"I seek refuge, too."

His words are almost too quiet to be heard.

Sunshine is nothing if not a promoter of humane impulses (or, in some cases, merely enlightened self-interest.).

Her reply is quiet. "What would you seek refuge from?"

His brow knits for a brief moment, as if the question is so obvious, he's amazed she would even ask it. His hands fall away from her face, drifting down over her shoulders, down her arms, his fingers seeking hers.

"Do you think we might -- adjourn this conversation? Perhaps to a more civilised setting?"

It might be a way to deflect answering her question. It might be a way to answer it, just as easily.

Her gaze, which hasn't moved from him in quite a while now, falters.

"I... sure," she murmurs, wondering, her hands in his.

(There is always a need for ceremony, my lady. At least where you and I stand.)

Another long moment passes, his gaze fixed on her face, and it's clear, behind his eyes, there are other questions. Other concerns.

Around them, the shadows ebb and flow.

"You are the first to ask such a question. Others of your kind, they tell me -- there is no refuge. There can be -- no refuge."

Her hands tighten slightly on his. "I can't... speak for those here." Like the clientele would ever be so homogenous that one person could speak for them about anything - Sunshine doesn't envy anyone who'd take that position. "But that's the exact feeling we all get, vice-versa, back home."

No one gets away from a vampire.

"But it's not nearly so black and white. People might want to think it is, for simplicity's sake." And she had been one of them, wanting Us versus Them because it's was simpler, safer. But then, well, things had happened, and she can't go back to that. Can't just be the baker of the best cinnamon rolls in the history of Independencia.

"But it's not. It's really not. It doesn't have to be, either for them or for you."

"And thus the first steps are taken down the path to my destruction."

The corner of his lip curls up, and the air around him grows thick, cloying with the scent of roses and rotting paper.

"The most dangerous lies we tell, are the ones we believe with all our hearts."

He is condemned by God. For him to believe in just the possibility of refuge now is a dangerous indulgence. A weakness he cannot bear.

He lets her hands go and steps back.

"Let our truce hold, just a while longer."

Her hand reaches for him involuntarily as he fades into the shadows. The shadows that were then left as just shadows. Mundane. Shadows her Dark Sight could pierce as easily as if they were in broad daylight.

Even as she automatically turns to seek an alignment, to find him, she is certain he wasn't playing with her. That he is gone, leaving her standing on the warm, somehow-Caribbean sand, surrounded by the depth of a Scottish winter night. Leaving her shivering not just with cold.

Leaving her wondering exactly when in these last few months she had taken complete leave of her sanity. As though her life and loyalties weren't already tearing her apart. What did she think she was doing?

[oom] Sunshine, lakeside

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