[Blossom]
From behind slated windows and barred doorways, she can glimpse paths she's forbidden to travel and a world from which she's been locked away. In the reflection of highly polished wood floors, she finds her own gaze warbled and distant.
In the silence, she finds no comfort; in solitude, no solace. What sin she has committed, she cannot fathom; of what trick she must perform to be freed, she has no conception.
They bring her sustenance in the form of captured wretches, always male. She supposes this to be one of his stipulations--him, her betrayer. His cold, clawed hands--beautiful, deadly--encompass all of this; his signature might have been scrawled in blood across the walls of this place for all the subtlety present.
He is angered with her, she believes. It explained so much, and somehow very little. The sense of his touch was there; but where was the reason? She knew him to be intelligent--far too intelligent. He had a purpose, she felt sure.
She sees the Kuran's boy-child for the first time, looking so much like a smaller, more innocent form of her captor that she has to smile. The expression feels withered on her lips; too dry, too long unpracticed.
The boy does not return the smile and she thinks that he might be a greater deal like his Uncle than she originally thought.
"I pity you," she tells him. She passes him going one direction--and he going another. Through the slated walls, she can see that his gaze follows her closely and she is happy to be seen.
"Flowers are not meant to be kept in cages," he says back.
The look of understanding that passes between them makes her wonder what a Kuran child--so young--could know of cages and blood.
They bring her another wretch--male, as always. He watches her from across the space of the room where she takes her meals, his legs folded beneath him and his head bowed low in respect. She does not go to him.
"Do you not fear death?"
The man does not look up. "I do not."
"And you do not fear me, then?"
At this, he does glance up. His gaze slips upward slowly, climbing from the tatami mat beneath her, to the fabric of her kimono; higher still, to the breaking of brighter color in her obi, then to her face.
He meets her gaze head-on, the absence of shadows in his eyes saying much. His lips, kissed at the corners with laugh lines, tilt upward crookedly.
"It would be good to taste death in the arms of a goddess."
She decides that, for all that he is a flatterer, she will keep him.
It has been far too quiet in her cage.
He lightens the monotony in unexpected ways. He is allowed to venture into the gardens of this compounded cage they share; he brings her gifts of flowers that smell of sweet earth and sunshine. He puts them in vases--dozens of them--and leaves them on end tables and shelves, for her enjoyment. When they begin to wither, he hangs them from their stems to allow them to dry in perfect form; he calls it floral immortality and she laughs at his whimsy.
When she comments--idly--that her hair is becoming a nuisance, he suggests a change of style. For a moment she is so shocked at the simplicity of the idea that she's speechless.
He laughs at her small, opened mouth stare and fetches a length of ribbon. From the collection of sacred bells scattered throughout their cage, he choses one. Threading the golden charm onto the ribbon, he ties it into her hair.
"There," he proclaims softly, "a new look, for the goddess."
She reviews his work in the looking glass, by the window. The moonlight, streaming through the bars, turns her skin paler than it should be and her hair into mercury. She likes the reflection of silver in her eyes and the gleam of it on her fingernails.
When she walks into his embrace, the bell chimes, softly.
She is most pleased.
Though his existence is tolerated, she knows his presence infuriates her captor. Still, she is glad of her companion, happier than she has been in years.
It is not unreasonable, after all, that she not be alone.
The progression of their relationship is slow, subtle even.
In the beginning, as the wretch-human, he is worshipful and wry with humor in the face of inevitable death. It was that which caught her attention and stilled her hunger. The crooked curve of his lip and the laughter hiding in his eyes.
After his rebirth, he is needy and hungry; misinformed, as well. He thinks is goal is to serve and to assist. She takes several long days and nights to tell him differently.
Then he is sweet, jovial. He brings her gifts and coaxes laughter from whatever hole it has been hiding in since her imprisonment. He braids her hair and pantomimes classical plays, sometimes acted all the parts at once.
Later--much time later--he is needy again, though in a different sense. Blood is between them--his in her, hers in him. He aches with the bond between them; needs her to touch him, to be with him. She is older, natural. She understands the burn and is better at suppressing it.
In the end, however, she gives in. What is so wrong, she thinks, in giving herself to a man? Pleasure is not a forbidden gift, but rather a welcome one. Why should she withhold herself from what could be hers, so wholly, out of duty to another who did nothing of the kind?
So she lets him make love to her, as he calls it. She knows it by another word, but he finds the word "mating" distasteful and requests that she avoid using it. She agrees, because he asks so little of her.
As a pureblood, she has bound herself to her fledgling. As a vampire, she has bound herself to a once-mortal lover.
As a woman, she has found a man who makes her smile; one to ease the ache and burden of sacrificing one's happiness out of obligation.
She is willing to admit that she loves this man.
But somehow, that which was hers is stolen.
Again.
Like her freedom, like her choices, he is gone.
Taken.
By hunters, by treachery. By that man.
Demon.
She hurts, aches. Her heart beats pure agony.
Silence.
She cannot scream, she cannot wail.
Fight.
She will take revenge. She will destroy.
Everything.