A/N: fuckin hell welcome back my friends! Apologies for the unceremonious break I took there, self care and mental health demanded my full attention. I wanted to start back on something easy, so here's more vampshit(tm). It's a bit different in tone than before, something more akin to a proper romance novel than horror. I hope you like it!
Suns rose and fell, tomorrows became today's became yesterdays, the phases of the moon cycled fully around; but for Akko, shrouded as she was in the suffocating darkness, time began to loose meaning. Whether today's today was yesterday's tomorrow or not lost all relevance within a castle that never changed- even as you slashed and clawed at her stones, desperate to make your mark.
When the pale moon rose and miasmic shadow flowed from corners untouched by light, the castle rippled and shifted like a recalled memory.
The sun may rise again; tomorrow may be another day, but the night will always return.
Atsuko sat and watched numbly as the cup she had smashed in manic fury vanished from the floor and the candles she had watched melt snapped back to their full size.
Ice cold tendrils of blackness climbed up the brunette's ankles, curling up past her chains to hug her calves sweetly. It hurt like the wrath of winter and the acursed fires of hell, but she remained quiet and still, listening to the voices.
"Who does he choooose~ The man in the moooon~ When allll the children are goooone~" The little shadows sang in joyous chorus, gently nibbling on the edges of her God-given soul. "He chooses you, little boy bluuue~ , to join him in his tooomb~"
"Mistress is hungry again tonight." One of the voices whispered quickly, discordant from the rest who continued to hum along to a tune only the damned could hear. "No more guests at the party, it will have to be you." Another added with the same rushed tone.
Akko hadn't yet fully recovered from the last feeding- most hours of the day spent feeling weak and lightheaded, but if her lady lord wished for more, she could do naught but obey; go to her queen and offer what little life she had to give.
Breathing in a shaky lungful of air, he brunette tilted her head to look again at the candles, flames now burning a deep scarlet. If only her blood would return with each rise of moon; if only the pain in her mind and body would vanish with the setting sun, perhaps she could finally settle in and be alright.
She puffed out a dry bitter laugh, letting her eyelids droop closed- the idea that she could become jealous of inanimate objects, throw scornful glances at walls: utterly absurd.
"Our- Our mistress awaits me." Grasping the fabric of her gown as to lift it away from the ground, Akko gazed warily into the dark puddle of swirling shadows at her feet, holding back the horrific shudder that wanted to shake her entire spine apart. "May I go to her?"
"Yes! yesyesyesyesyes! yesss... yesyesyesYes!" They cried, their tendrils pulling down and off of Akko's skin back into the abyss, leaving harsh red marks where they touched her. "Go to her! GoGoGOtoHERGOgogoGO! She will be pleased!"
With those final cries, the bottomless pit of eternal blackness dissipated, and the willing captive was alone with her thoughts again.
Akko sighed, instinctively wrapping her arms around herself in a sort of hug. Where as the Count at least tried to accommodate her, pretended to care about her preferences and well-being, the other demons of the night were not so gentle.
"I see you've learned to hear them." A familiarly saccharine tone noted from the doorway, her verdant eyes shining with genuine amusement. "I didn't even have to save you this time!"
"They say our queen is hungry again?" Akko inquired, verifying the words of the voidspawn with a second, slightly more trustworthy, party.
The vampire nodded once, giving one of her trademark insincere smiles. "She awaits you on her throne; don't dawdle."
As if she would ever keep her lady lord waiting, even before the red punctures on her neck became her only way of telling one day from another; Count Manbavaran was many things, but patient was not one of them.
The dark of night had completely settled in by the time she finally reached the sanctuary of her mistress' lap, but even as a dull pain rhythmically throbbed in her neck, and her strength faded away into nothing, she felt at peace.
"You're awfully still tonight darling." The demoness murmured into Atsuko's throat, running cold fingers gently across her cheek. "You seem almost... relaxed."
The brunette reached up weakly, joining the Count's hand on her face and humming contentedly. "Bad day..." She explained to the best of her ability, sleepily looking into her mistress' blood red eyes. "Better now..."
A single muscle twitched inside of Sucy's hollow chest, a ghostly warmth flashing in and out of existence in the depths of her cold dead heart. The vampire almost recoiled in legitimate horror, but she restrained herself, leaving only the dry audible swallow of nothing as any indication it ever happened.
She snarled, digging her fangs back into Akko's neck hard, far more than enough pressure necessary to break skin. Her meal didn't even flinch at the reopening, simply breathing with that slow mindful rhythm that indicated she was still alive and somewhat lucid.
Prodding at the brunette's soul, Sucy peered into her entirety, brushing past images of smiling parents and a blood splattered house, turning away from the feelings of young love unrequited and weighty debts unpaid.
Near the very end of the line, where new feelings of safety and bliss were just coming into existance, the demoness found it.
A rose that would never wilt, its thorns choking the life from all things; an apple that would never fall, leaving the worms beetles in the dirt to starve; a flame that would remain forever lit, burning away a hundred homes and a thousand more lives.
But then the storm came, with its dark billowing clouds, black as night: screaming winds and roaring thunder shook the apple from the tree, torrential downpour drowned the fire beneath a lakes worth of water, a streak of lightning as hot as the sun reduced the rose to dust.
She could do nothing but chuckle, pulling back into the world of forms and gently squeezing her sleeping captive's cheek between two fingers.
"How can an idiot like you even exist?"
Atsuko awoke the next day tucked snugly into her bed and utterly drained, her head foggy and memory blank. Her dreams were only snippets, the sensation of cool rain after a hot day still tingling on the surface of her skin.
Eyes fluttering open, the willing captive looked across the room where a beautiful red rose stood tall in a slim crystal vase filled with sparkling clear water.
Not an hour later did she awake again to see one of its petals lying dead on the table.
A/N: Whew well there we have it, something nice and slightly less stockholmy than I was initially going for. Tell me how it was? I hope my quality hasn't degraded from rust.
The schedule should be roughly back to normal, with the collection updating roughly every week and A Rose in Winter being #whenitsready.
And now I'm off to watch more shoujo, because it is one of my primary joys in life.