To Share Mortality
Warm blood spilled over sharply capped teeth and into a sensual mouth, caressing a red tongue mockingly [1]. The owner of that mouth sucked ardently and yet somewhat reluctantly on the curve of a female human's throat, just above a pulse point. That reluctance, it would seem, was all that was left of the consideration and love of life that had at a time been.
This woman's blood was not of high quality, and the being knew that, despite her lovely features and slight form, she wasn't the healthiest of eaters.
At last finished, the male being withdrew the sharp caps from her and lay the sleeping body down. With a salve he sealed the skin he had punctured through, and stood, grateful that this time he hadn't had to kill. He didn't want to think right now, and the killing jobs were so much more work in that area. The woman was still safe, for she hadn't lost much blood, really.
He made his way to the front door of her stylish flat and exited it, giving no more thought to the deed he had done.
_______
"Jason Smith" stepped, relieved, into the apartments he shared with a friend[2]. Ai. Back in his homeland, such as it had become, was a very nice thing.
"Have you fed?" The soft voice didn't startle him—he had known that she'd be sitting up waiting for him. Millennia and millennia of living in her care had taught him that; also the fact that her breathing from where she sat on the sofa was normal, and not typical of resting.
"Before I left."
"Was it satisfying enough?"
"No. She was not healthy. Nevertheless, I will wait the allotted time, Tea."
"Rest well, my lord."
He watched her rise from the sofa and exit the sitting room gracefully. Her words of "rest well" laughed in his head. When was the last time he had rested well? It had been far over a few millennia now. He knew the same was of Tea, though she had yet to complain.
He made his way to the master bedroom and glanced over to see Tea's door opened halfway. It didn't surprise him. During the earliest crusades and witch-hunts—before they had been married—it had been something she had done often to feel sound. They had been wed many times throughout the years, yet shared a mattress few times.
He stepped into the small, moonlight sliver on the carpeted floor of her bedroom. Her eyes were closed, of course—something they'd learned to do the deeper legend and fact became confused, and faeries were no longer accepted as 'real'. The sleeping female on the bed didn't stir as he studied her.
'Have you fed?' He sneered as he thought on her words. Vampires. Another myth. Another legend now laughed at, made into overdramatic movies without all the facts; beings made up in evening clothes and capes and able to morph into bats. Many seemed 'genuine' enough, he supposed, when one didn't know the truth. And the truth was this:
Vampires were fools who craved mortality that never they could have. Vampires were beings, stubborn beings, whose natural path in life they had too long resisted. Why did the few elves left on Middle Earth drink the blood of mortals [3]? Why did they crave that disgusting taste, that sticky liquid? Because in it they could taste mortality, in it they could taste the one thing they had always been denied. The old thought that perhaps by drinking the life of the humans, the elves themselves could be mortal—that perhaps they could take into themselves the cursed mortality gifted to humans—had long been rejected, but still they drank. Death itself had been withdrawn from them, it seemed, as sorrow would no longer kill them. Had Aman been closed so much from them that death itself receded? Aye. It had. Their sin was unpardonable, and Mandos had turned from them.
Why had the sorrow not killed them before their sin was this: the few that had not died of sorrow had still had hope that the West was not entirely closed to them. That hope, it seemed, had borne to them Insanity and all of her Sisters. For now the blood of the mortal was drunk in some still brainsick hope. And sorrow was no longer available to them. For they had no emotions now. Those they had traded in for mortal blood.
Tea moved upon her bed and murmured in her sleep, drawing the older elf's attention.
She had been a former servant of his family's and had opted to stay with him until he traveled into the West to go into the Havens. He had not, so she had not. The fool though she was, he was sometimes grateful in a cold way that she was here.
Jason withdrew from her room to his own and lay down. It was time to receive what rest he could, if he could. Maybe tonight he wouldn't feel warm blood on his hands and tongue…
_______
Gray eyes carefully watched milling pedestrians, watching for an unknown step, an unknown falter that would feed her. A pink tongue gently tested the sharpness in her mouth once more, and when the teeth drew blood from her tongue again at the slightest pressure, she was satisfied.
Ah. Her eyes settled on a medium-sized man that would seem to be the most unusual victim. Elves had, however, always bested humans with the hidden strength and not-so-hidden speed that they had possessed.
With a casual move, she stood from the bench she'd waited on and started to follow the man. She wouldn't kill him. No. Very rarely did she kill, even when she was crazed for the taste of mortality. But he would be weak, certainly, for a few days. Dizzy, perhaps. Disoriented.
Her eyes narrowed. Her hunger for taste was making her somewhat more careless, yes? He knew that he was being followed. Well then, perhaps a hunt was in order? And the smell of rain was in the air, so maybe the water would aid her.
Yes, he most certainly knew he was being followed, however, not yet by whom. Well then, it would make this a little difficult. She liked it when they simply woke up disoriented with no suspicion of anything other than being knocked out, and confusion over it. Her pout covered full lips. She wasn't fond of hunts.
Soon, they were on a street that was presently sparsely populated with people; she slowed her pace and turned into an alley, traveling that way before she came to a place he would pass, and no people in sight.
As she waited for the somewhat more relaxed footfalls, she reflected on a magazine article she'd read the previous night whilst waiting up for her 'husband.' Certainly anyone would die if a stake was driven through his or her hearts, or if they were burned.
Ah.
Her eyes dilated as she felt the first of the rains on her skin. The man strode passed her, and she stepped out beside him with a broad, enticing smile. He was startled and gave her a wary glance before quickening his pace. She kept pace with him, and he turned into a dense alley.
"Look, Woman, I'm married. Go away."
She stopped, vaguely offended at the title, and registering the American accent while he strode away. With a shrug, she turned and continued walking along the alley's shadows, her eyes catching the sounds of his footfalls, and then a mutter about a 'crazy woman'. She smirked, careful not to stretch her lips too far in deference to the pseudo canines.
She turned into an alley and followed him silently, melting into shadows every now and again before he glanced behind him. Soon, they were far enough away that this would be safe, and she leapt at him, struggling with him briefly before he was knocked out and lay on the hard ground. Supporting his upper body, she sank her teeth into his neck, careful to pick a spot that would heal quickly and not be a dangerous wound.
These teeth, she reflected, were one of the last true testaments made in Middle Earth of the skill-craft and grace and perfection in what the elves made. Though it was morbid and oh so sinful. It was a kind of sensual sinful, though, when one thought of it. The enjoyment often left her feeling bereft after she was done with 'feeding' for the next three days. But the knowledge of what she was doing, the knowledge that there would be no redemption for her now, made this sin seducing.
She winced at the taste of blood. His was of a good quality—she'd chosen well this time—however, she never really got used to the common taste of it. The underlying taste, though, the taste of mortality, was something that she loved to taste, and it was what she had learned to focus on after the initial flood of blood.
She withdrew her teeth and sighed before withdrawing the small pouch of salve and putting it on the puncture marks. Purring in delight when she was finished with it all, the blood satisfying her body, and the man wasn't dead.
Jason would feed again soon. She yawned. The female hoped the next selection would be better.
_______
A form curled was curled up in a fetal position on a carpeted floor, back to a wall and arms across his middle. This was what the remaining had come to. Drinking blood, passive. Cold, but not so. A moan escaped the beings mouth. Ah.
He heard her returning steps and uncurled himself to sit against the wall, staring into the darkness.
She sent him an understanding glance when she entered the apartment. There was blood on his hands, and so she left him alone, leaving the room to wash her own. There was blood on all of their hands, these remaining. It would always be so, until the end of their lives. She wondered, often, what would happen then, and it chilled her.
_______
Note(s): I wrote this for my best friend's birthday quite a few months ago. I don't write morbidity and angst, so I don't pretend that this is wonderful. Still, I was curious on the reception it would get, riddled though it is with mistakes.
The thought was this: Elves are immortal. What if there were some who waited too long to heed the call of the sea and go into the West, or the Gray Havens, and so were forbidden passage into it—it could no longer be reached? What if, craving death that even sorrow would no longer lend them, they began to drink mortality—the life-blood of mortals—and though it failed, the taste fueled them, and they developed a sort of addiction to it?
[1] Caps. I may go into this later, but due to the skill of the elves, even in the earliest times, when the feedings first began, these caps were made to fit over their canine teeth to puncture the skin easily.
[2] Friend. They have been wed for many years, but they are so in name only. Rather, he mostly thinks of her as friend. Such as the meaning of "friend" exists.
[3] Middle Earth. I'm not sure how to describe this one, except to say that, in my mind, Middle Earth and our Earth have been consciously and purposely separated into two different things. The Earthen universe and layout now would be the same in present Middle Earth, but the spiritual aspects, which are touched on from Middle Earth's point of view, are different. (Though I know that is not how Prof. Tolkien meant it to be.)