Porrim lay staring silently at the ceiling, white even through the gloom of night though strange and unfamiliar to her. For the third time that week she found herself in a bed that wasn't her own and beside the sleeping form of a troll that wasn't who she wanted them to be. Rarely since her falling out with Aranea had she enjoyed her encounters by night for longer than the immediate amount if time they took. An hour or so of relief and she was dragged back in to her own dark mind.
No light.
Endless love.
Love for the one that turned her away for a reason that she, even after so much time, was completely oblivious to. She spent hours working it over in her mind and though she was nothing if not clever, she could come to no conclusions apart from her own existence as to what could have repulsed Aranea so. She fathomed and pondered every possible reason that came through her mind and could only think to blame herself.
She would never have her back. In the eight sweeps since their sudden parting, Porrim had garnered quite a reputation amongst their friends, and indeed among more than a few strangers, as a slut and one rather incapable of emotion beyond list and apathy. Surely she made no attempt to correct them, as they were a least partially correct about her apathetic outlook, but they were also terribly mistaken. She felt a great deal more than that, her heart glowing vibrantly with seemingly unrequited love for the woman she once called her own.
Her beautiful, high strung, bibliophilic cerulean blood with a knowledge as all encompassing and varied as her library.
The glow of her rainbow drinker heart was dim, dulled by loneliness and rejection. All the emotionless pailing in the world couldn't bring it to glow even a fraction as bright as it had the first time Aranea told Porrim she loved her.
While Aranea was by no means her first and certainly not her last, Porrim had never felt quite the same with anyone. The sweet and clumsy fumblings of Aranea's delicate fingers on the silk laces of her corset. The vibrant blush slowly taking over her features as Porrim kissed her softly and took over, removing it with ease as Aranea mumbles embarrassed apologies. Her quiet little voice finally announcing to the near empty room that it was her first time. Porrim knew that what they did and everything they had meant something she couldn't let go of Aranea, each memory of her smile, her voice, her touch, was Porrim's lifeline.
Slowly, she rose from beneath the silk sheets of the stranger's bed and dressed herself, well past the point of shame for her actions and simply longing for a glass of cherry wine on her own familiar sofa. Porrim at least knew the hive well enough to escort herself out, her stockings, bra, and panties hastily tucked in to her purse and the click of her heels on the concrete step echoing in to the rippling moonlight that flooded the street with soft white light. The night had always been a friend to her, but with its cool cover and protection from prying, pitying, judging eyes, it brought memories.
A memory.
The memory of her only heartbreak. She went home that night sobbing, relaying Aranea's exact words in her mind until she made herself sick and doing it again and again to the point where her throat was sore and her knuckles were bruised from gripping her bathroom counter. Porrim slept on the floor with a sweaty that smelled of Aranea's perfume for weeks, until both her and the fabric of the sweater were worn.
Tattered.
Worthless.
With an empty mind and numb body, Porrim began to sew. She sat at the noisy, feverish little machine until her fingers bled and she ran out of fabric. The pile of garments she had made on her floor, no one to wear them and their newly crafted shapes already wrinkled. She had to find something to keep herself busy, though a journal was completely put of the question and cooking wasn't occupying enough. She could think of only one other alternative and set about seducing the first in a long line.
The first after Aranea.
She relived the blur of faces as she came to her hive after her long walk. A walk she'd made many times before in the past eight sweeps, broken a little more each time. No longer distracted, the horrible emptiness seeped back in to her chest and stomach. It pushed hollowly against her fragile skin and clawed with black talons at her throat, ready to climb in to her mind and set her on a path to madness.
Once again, she pushed it down and attempted to drown it with an over full glass of cherry wine and sat slumped on her sofa. A dull ache started in her temples and she sighed wearily, willing it away and closing her eyes to the memory of Aranea occupying the spot to the left of her on the black suede cushion. Tired as she was, she didn't want to fall asleep. Sleep brought dreams
Memories.
Nightmares.
Porrim couldn't face them again, but couldn't stop herself from setting down the three times emptied wine glass and lying down on her side. A blanket lying on the floor from the last time she'd slept like this served as the warmth against her cold skin and colder heart.
Her heart.
Its soft glow faltered against the crushing emptiness sitting beneath her ribs, though she knew its light, love's light, would forever shine on through the darkness.