Wow I just could not stop writing this! I've missed this world! Warning for the darkness, I read up about Tzimisce and wow they've got some very twisted tales about those guys so it's nothing that's not already in the lore. Honestly I find the White Wolf wiki to be an addiction I wish they'd make more games or write some books the stories they have for their characters and lore are fascinating! Anyway, please read and review as always!
With the pain came the pleasure or was it with the pleasure came the pain? It was orgasmic but against my will, I could no more silence my screams than I could free my bonds. Invisible bonds now, chains fastened from droplets of blood, my blood and his. Master, captor, guardian, guard, lover, violator, my sun, my life, my suffering, my death, he was all these things and more. When once I had a name now I knew only his- Valyrion. He was the only named voice in my head but not the only one. The dominant voice, the overpowering presence, the only one I had to listen to. I wanted deeply to obey him if only to find some relief from the pain but I could not and it drove me to a fresh level of burning, red madness. He wanted knowledge I could not unlock, secrets I could not tell and locations I could not give. He felt it was all within me and I felt it too but try as we both might to tear my mind apart for the yolk of knowledge within we could not get at it. He thought with my mortality that the web was gone and there was no more spider to protect the rambling minds but he was wrong, the spider had cast off the binds of clan and death but he had forgotten to cast out himself and so there he remained, prisoner and guard to my labyrinth of memories, secrets and knowledge.
"Sascha is coming my worthless dog," the master purred at me. Funny but I could not recall myself having a tail and pointed ears, had master taken them from me?
I was equally honoured and horrified to be in his presence once more. Was I not unworthy of it by now? I shuddered as my eyes rolled up to his disturbingly beautiful form. He was long beyond a human facade, far more wondrous and desirable than their flawed meaty forms, our forms, mustn't forget we're mortal now. He was godlike and devil like all at once, desirable and terrifying. It hurt to look on him and I felt my sore bowels shudder and bleed warm again. It was a familiar experience now, the only warmth my broken flesh felt anymore was that of my own urine and blood staining my bruised legs anew.
"The seeker," I whispered before I could stop myself.
I earned a deserved steel capped toe to the face for my outspokenness. I tasted blood upon my lip, sour, weak and thick as it congealed quickly. I did not think I had much vitae left to spare.
"How is that you still have something in that rotting mind of yours telling you things you shouldn't know?" he demanded.
"The words come to my mind, they are just thoughts," I retorted weakly.
"But not your thoughts," he said in a cold and curious manner. His yellow eyes met my gaze and I trembled at the intensity of their predatory stare.
"I have no thoughts, no nothing, everything is master's," I babbled hastily.
"Well if your thoughts are actually my thoughts I deserve to know them," he countered as his thin, cool fingers reached out to touch at my bloody scalp.
There was a sharp flash of pain as I felt my skull press down tightly against my brain. My eyes squeezed tightly shut and I screamed as my legs kicked out behind involuntarily as I felt the flesh about my brain wither as if it was being dried out. "The withering will be a shared fate on the final nights," I mused.
"Only for those foolish enough to go against the Dark Father but that is not the thought I wish you to tell me mad whore. Sascha will get the knowledge from you when he comes, the truth of the antediluvians; we will find these cowards and burn them where they sleep. Perhaps I will let you burn with Malkav, after we have shaped you both beyond recognition of course. His sins are many and he will answer for all of them, it is a punishment that will take time."
"I don't know where he is," I murmured wearily, "I am human, I don't know of any of this anymore." Liar, liar, who will burn in the red woods for her false tongue?
I found myself flung back onto the floor once wood it was now made of a flesh stretched and thinned so as to resemble a carpet of skin. My eyes gazed up at beams made from bones and lights that were flames burning in not wax holdings but many blinking eyeballs. The pain began from below and I sought to clench my legs closed and begged. "NO! NO!" It was to no avail, begging is a sweet song on Tzimisces' mutated ears and something they seek to hear. It was my master's touch though and I could not resist finding a sick enjoyment in it even as I hated it.
"I will let you enjoy it, perhaps in your joy you will confess your sins with Malkav," the master murmured. His voice seemed to come from all around me and within me, it was soft, seducing and irresistible and yet I had nothing to offer it. Shame, shame! I must hurt for failing master.
"Hurt then," he said cruelly as his voice lost its deceptive seduction and took on a tone of hardened hate.
"Why don't you hurt instead?" a male's voice quipped sardonically.
"Did you really need to say that?" another male remarked in a dry manner, his voice deeper than the other's.
"Well it makes for a good entrance," came the answer. These voices sounded real, we had intruders!
"Right because the usage of your presence to make them bow to you downstairs and allow you to blow their brains out wasn't nearly theatrical enough, never mind the frigging wolf tearing them to shreds."
Voices, so many strange and yet familiar voices to intrude upon the deserved suffering. I wanted to look but I couldn't, I couldn't move.
"The wolf ruined it," the first male remarked woefully.
"I made it quicker," a third's voice commented in an irritated manner.
"Who the hell are you?" master demanded in outrage as much as shock.
Only then did I finally become aware of the delightful music downstairs, the chorus of gunfire and explosives, the wild cheer of battle hungry vampires bringing destruction and death to those who thought themselves masters of it. Oh what a delicious irony. I realised then what this had to mean for Valyrion. I tried to scramble to my feet to shield him but my body would not comply and instead I found myself flinging my body down before his feet.
"Oh shit is that her?" the first male's voice again only it had lost its bravado. "Fucking Tzimisce!"
There was a painful, golden glow just to my left and I found myself unable to resist looking at it. There was a form beneath the light, tall and male, and it wanted me to fear it, it wanted us all quaking and screaming in fear and I found myself obeying.
"Your presence is nothing to me Toreador mutt!" master screamed.
"Mutt?" The golden light dimmed slightly and I made out an attractive male with ebony black hair and marble white skin looking at my master with both offence and disgust. "I am a purebred," he snapped angrily.
"Fuck Kent this is not the time," his companion, the owner of the second voice, grumbled. A mortal, a ghoul, I sensed the similarity to myself in him the moment I looked his way. There was more too but it was lost to the fog I had banished all my personas and memories to. Enduring the love for a Tzimisce was not possible if one burdened themselves with an identity. The ghoul was holding a shotgun which he aimed and fired quickly.
BANG!
"Master!" I squealed in alarm as my master flinched back from the bullet. He was fine though, just angry.
"Let bugs tear your mortal flesh from your bones for that!" master yelled at the ghoul in hate.
I watched as the many beetles and scarabs and cockroaches came forth from the master's grey, cold hand as he stretched it out to the ghoul. I shuddered, knowing the infliction the man was about to endure, the pain of many, many tiny teeth gnashing at your flesh rapidly like dogs at a bone. He deserved it though; he had tried to hurt the master.
"Ah shit," the man grumbled, only annoyed at his peril rather than afraid, "I hate these disciplines."
BANG! BANG! BANG! The dark haired male moved in a blur, too fast for master to dodge all of his shots. I screamed again and made to block my master. I made it only halfway up before a bullet grazed my left leg and sent me crashing to the floor again.
"Ariadne!" The blur halted and looked at me in horror. "Damn it stay down kid!"
Master took his sudden advantage and suddenly the Toreador was trembling as his eyes flashed red and his fangs poked down from his upper lip against his control. "Frenzy," the master ordered in a deep voice.
BANG! BANG! BANG! The ghoul tried to shoot back at the stream of bugs. The dark haired male's head turned in his direction sharply and he let out a hiss. "Kent don't even fucking think it," the ghoul said warily as he hastened back from the insects. "Scholar are you going to do anything?" he demanded impatiently.
The third male let out a heavy, sardonic sigh and moved just before the dark haired male could. He caught him from behind, restraining him back as he snapped out at the ghoul angrily. Master laughed in mockery and victory.
"I don't know how you three fools got up here but you will not leave," master murmured.
They were to be his last words, had I known that I might have cherished them better. "It's a charade," I whispered too late as I turned up to master one last time. Two forms materialised from behind him without warning, one pulling the other. The claws were about my master's head before he could resist and they tore it asunder.
My gaze turned red as I felt my heart break with master's head. I was screaming, howling and crying, the end had come and I could see no future. At some point the red gave way to black and then the nothingness.
"You could have kept him existing long enough for us to question him." It was the sardonic voice of the third man that drew me from a suffocating oblivion of darkness and nightmares, of burning and pain and loss.
"Look at what he did to my sister, if it was your sister would you have done any different?" That snarled voice I knew it, oh God I knew it. No, no familiarity, no identity, you will only lose it, you can only lose it. You knew master and you lost him. Know no one else, lose no one else!
"Well that's my point," the sarcastic one retorted calmly, "in the greater scheme of Tzimisce he didn't do anything that cannot be undone in time."
"That's true," that was the voice of the dark haired male; "he didn't mutate her. Don't give me that look Rob, I'm not downplaying the damage like Beckett, I'm just saying, it's not like them to not mutate their victims."
"Waiting for Sascha, waiting for Sascha, Sascha is the best moulder, Sascha shapes the mind to make the tongue sing songs they want to hear." That was my voice, quiet and hoarse from repeated screams.
"Hey crazy cat," the gentle voice of the ghoul. He put himself in my vision and I shrank back. Tender, olive green eyes that were usually full of a tired apathy save for me, raven black hair, once slicked back like oil and shaved at the sides, he had let it grow, and a face not pale in death but rather from a lack of sunlight, it wasn't the sweet porcelain of Snow White's but rather that shade mortals bear that is so translucent even their own kind consider them sickly when they are well. "I know, you don't remember me, yet," he addressed me kindly as if I were a child. "That's the blood fever but it'll pass, I promise."
Another jerked the ghoul back suddenly and a new face was pressed close against mine. From behind a pair of deceptive glasses a curious gaze glowered at me. The glasses were designed to resemble shades so that none would know unless they looked too closely that it was the eyes that burned orange and not the tint of glass and if one got that close they most likely wouldn't live to tell about it so there was no one danger for this creature of his animalism being revealed. "Sheep's clothing does not suit you," I murmured mockingly.
"What the hell are you doing?" the ghoul demanded angrily.
"You said Sascha," this new figure addressed me sharply, emphasising each word as if I were slow or perhaps partially deaf. I thought of when my ears had been filled with blood and the drums in them made to hammer until it was all I heard and I wondered if perhaps I was hard of hearing now.
"Does that mean something to you Beckett?" Second speaker, pretty poet, he was near.
Too many voices, too many monsters, I didn't want anymore. I shrank back from them all until my back met wood and then I cried. My nailess fingers met the edges of a blanket and I drew it up and over me as I shook. Yes, hide under the blankie, a blankie is the best armour against the bogeymen. Oh shit, not that voice again, one of the many, the leader of the legion, a voice that had its own identity. No, only master had the identity! I let out a sob, master was gone, I was alone to the monsters and the voices, now everything would roam free without master.
"Leave her alone," I heard the ghoul compel angrily.
"I know of a Tzimisce called Sascha," Beckett confessed grimly, "more foul than the rest hard as that is to believe. He thinks himself a seeker of knowledge but he tends to destroy it in his efforts to seek it."
"Knowledge like Ariadne would have?" the poet quipped.
"Sarah," the one who claimed to be brother snarled, "her name is Sarah."
I lowered the blanket just an inch at this and peered out fearfully to the end of the bed I occupied. They were all gathered there, a motley collection of vampires all staring back at me. The one who would be brother stood vicious faced, a grey eyed redhead he had given into the beast many times and yet to the chagrin of the scholar he remained void of the beast's marks. He stood with a deceptively vulnerable looking female at his side. She was redheaded and grey eyed too not like brother but perhaps a little like another female lost in my mind, only tough and cute while the other was charming and sexy, and her red hair was natural, a brownish redhead whilst the other had locks dyed a blazing crimson. This one folded her arms and frowned at me, biting down on her plump lips slightly with her fangs. There would be no woman's tenderness in this one. "Damned sails," I murmured.
She arched an eyebrow at that and I heard the poet mutter a curse. "Oh of course," he grumbled sardonically, "I put up with you for the longest but you remember Damsel first."
I sank back against the headboard and shook my head again. "Master's gone, I am lost again."
"She's not going to make much sense for a while," the ghoul murmured.
"When the hell did she ever make sense?" the poet was quick to comment.
"Look at her skin," the ghoul continued, "she's flushed, she's full of that fuck's blood. It's going to be tough waiting on it getting out of her system."
"How long do we have to wait for that?" the poet queried tiredly.
"A few weeks," the ghoul answered calmly, "and it's going to messy so you'll probably want to keep your sensitive Toreador ass away for a while."
"I'm sure I can handle it," the poet retorted heatedly.
"I doubt that," the ghoul answered as he glanced over at him warningly, "and even if you could she shouldn't have to put up with you watching. That goes for everyone really; she'll be going through enough without having an audience."
"Oh and you'll help will you?" brother snapped angrily as he unfolded his arms and glowered over at the ghoul. "What gives you the right? I'm her brother."
"Raise your hands if you have any experience with a ghoul going through withdrawal symptoms," the ghoul answered dryly. He raised his own hand and glanced about the room, frowning when the poet raised his hand and gave him a smug smile.
"Patty cake, patty cake baker's man," I murmured.
The poet frowned over at me. "Yeah, Patty," he said frostily, "I left her withdrawing too many times."
"Yeah you were kind of an asshole to do that," Damsel scolded him.
"I know," he retorted as he turned a wilting grey gaze on her.
"To continue," the ghoul interrupted bluntly, "keep your hand raised if you know how bad it really gets. If you've seen the ghoul past the shivering and the frenzying and the violence, if you've seen them shitting and vomiting all at once and without control, crying in their own mess as they suffer migraines and chest pains and a loss of all their senses."
"Now wait a minute," the poet snarled as he dropped his hand, "don't pretend Isaac ever let you get that way Romero, he wouldn't have."
"The Baron," I mused as I felt a shudder run through me, "the thorny rose, and the grave guard."
The ghoul glanced at me hesitantly before nodding and looking back to the poet. "He didn't, I know other ghouls, ones whose masters can show a lot of cruelty when they're disappointed."
"Fleet footed ghoul," I mused. Words with barely a flicker of an image- a memory, a message? I didn't know, I didn't like it, I wanted master's voice back, master kept most of the other voices quiet until he wanted them shouting then he had the roaring all at once all in an effort to find the one who told the truth, the oracle amongst the sirens.
"How is it that you still have foresight as a mortal?" the grave guard demanded in annoyance.
"Fleet footed ghoul," the poet mused, "oh shit, Mercurio, you know him? Does Isaac know you know him?"
Romero looked uncomfortable for a moment before he shrugged. "Not the point I'm trying to make. The point I'm trying to make is it's going to get ugly and you don't like ugly Kent and the rest of you might be able to stand it but that's not fair to her. Especially you Rob, you're her brother, would you want her to see you in that state?"
"Alright but I'm not going far," Rob grunted, ever the grudging Gangrel.
Damsel reached up a hand to his muscular right arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. Oh what had we missed in the weeks of slavery and mortality? "Army beauty and the beast," I murmured.
"Won't she need some assistance?" the scholar quipped delicately.
Romero nodded. "In time, when enough blood has been flushed out of her system she'll need medication for a start."
"And what of the blood?" the sharp toothed scholar pried. "We can all smell it, it's mostly Tzimisce, she doesn't have much of her own left. Will she survive this?"
"I can't know that," Romero admitted grimly.
"Perhaps some of that blood will need replenished," Beckett replied calmly.
"Not by you," Rob growled out.
"Look let's not discuss that unless we have to," the poet interrupted as he waved his hands slightly at the group.
"You mean until he gets here," Rob grumbled, "well he's not doing it either."
"I didn't say that," the poet protested with a defensive scowl.
"You didn't have to," Rob retorted heatedly.
I sank back against the bed head. My head throbbed and all I could think of was my fallen master, I wanted to fall with him but I resisted. I could not bear the voices anymore though and so I closed my eyes and welcomed the exhaustion that overcame me. Little did I know the weeks of agony I was now in for.
A fresh pang of agony stung through my abdomen and I doubled over with another screech of pain and humiliation. My bowels gave way against my control and I started to cry, I didn't think I would have to endure this torture again. Master had been fond of forcing this humility upon me if only to remind me that he controlled every aspect of me.
How many days now had I suffered without master? How many with? I would have lost track if the others did not. Kent grumbled about months, Damsel chided him for exaggerating and Romero scolded and said it had been two weeks. When had that been though? When had we reached two?
"There now crazy cat," Romero murmured soothingly as I collapsed against him in my exhaustion.
I let out another wince as my face screwed up in pain and I soiled myself anew. My skin was soaked in a cold sweat and coated in goose bumps and all my limbs felt heavy and sore but nothing was worse than the burning sensation in my waist.
"We'll clean it up," Romero assured, "just breathe through it."
How many times now had he cleaned me? How often I had sat at his mercy letting him wash and dress me like a doll? How many clothes and sheets had I ruined now? I trembled as the pain went another direction and broke from the ghoul to vomit violently upon myself. The vomit was looking more golden now with only a few traces of pink. It was less blood now and just stomach acid for there was certainly no food to be brought up.
"I want to die," I choked out, "God I want the embrace of Thanatos, no more of this!"
"I know," Romero remarked sombrely as he pushed my tangled hair back from my sweaty face and gave me a serious stare. "And you'll want that for a while yet but I'll get you through it, I promise."
"Why?" I demanded weakly as my eyes burned in a failed effort to produce tears.
"Well," he bowed his head slightly and I saw his neck turn pink, "I guess because I love you crazy cat. Maybe that's just the Baron's blood getting to me, hell if I know, but it is what it is."
"Love is twisted," I hissed out, "I loved the master, even as he warped my mind I begged for more. I don't want any more love."
"I understand that but it's not always like that. You loved Rob too and you love him still, I know that, and there's nothing twisted about that love, he's your brother. Anyway, sit tight, I'll tell Kent to get another bath ready."
"The water stings," I whimpered. It was true, so many wounds were still raw, and my healing was sluggish without the master's blood. So many things master had done for me and to me, kept me healing from his abuses with the blood, kept me strong with it and kept me close.
"I know that too, I'll tell him not to make it too hot." Romero stood up and left the room. Room, prison, gilded prison? Four walls, how boring, imagine a hexagonal prison, more walls to look at, at least. Shut up voice. He didn't lock the door, creep through the keyhole Alice, see the Wonderland they keep from you. No, he didn't lock the door because I was too weak to run and had nowhere to run to anyway.
Ten minutes later he was back, regarding me warmly with his olive eyes as he approached me slowly. "Anymore mess?" he queried calmly.
I shook my head.
"That's good," he assured me as he pressed the back of his large hand against my brow. "That fever however is not. We've really got to burn that out of you."
"No hot bath," I begged, "it burns down there, the bleeding doesn't stop down there."
"I know." He picked me up with ease, a tired sack of bones in his arms, and carried me from the room and to a narrow hallway where an impatient poet stood drumming his foot against the floor at an unnatural speed. The blur of the foot made me nauseous but I resisted vomiting again.
The poet's dove grey eyes went wide at the sight of me and he wrinkled his nose in revulsion. "How...how is she?" he stammered as he lost his composure.
"Exactly how she seems," Romero grumbled.
"She's still bleeding," the poet observed.
I felt Romero nod as we reached the poet and he stopped, waiting for the door behind the poet to be unblocked.
"She'll bleed out," the poet murmured as a hunger flashed in his eyes.
"She might but you won't make the decision over what to do about it if she does," Romero answered. His voice was calm but we all heard the warning in his words anyway.
The poet frowned but stepped away from the door, pushing it open before he did. We entered a small, clean bathroom that was becoming as familiar to me as the bedroom. It was modest but to me as pristine and luxurious as a palace. I had spent so long lying on skin and bones that I had forgotten the touch of carpet and wood. So long was I stained in filth and blood that I did not understand cleanliness and on my first night in this room I had almost drowned in a panic of unfamiliarity in the bath.
Romero rested me on a soft, green, velvet chair that the poet had procured for me. It was ill-suited to the bathroom but gentle against my tender skin. I waited as the ghoul tugged off the jumper and the trousers I was wearing and then the undergarments before discarding them to the floor, never to be worn again. At first it had been shirts and skirts but they had been tedious to remove and not comfortable for lying in. After a time Romero had complained to Damsel to find me garments as the poet evidently couldn't choose practicality over style as it went against his nature.
"Alright kitten," Romero addressed me, deep voice still gentle, "you know how it goes now, anything you don't like you say, and when you want out you tell me."
I nodded even as I shook in his grasp and flinched and sobbed when the water burned at my wounds despite being only lukewarm. When my screams became too loud someone thought to drown them out with music. Loud, classical music at first before some female's cursing drowned out the violins and piano and then came the rock music. I had almost been soothed by the classical tunes but then the rock jostled me back to reality and pain and I screamed anew.
I heard Romero stomp towards the door and jerk it open impatiently. "Put that back on!" he roared down the halls. "It's helping her for fuck's sake!" Had he ever cursed so much before? No, the grave guardian was normally as tranquil as the dead he minded. Ah but they had not been so tranquil once.
The music was instantly changed as the dour voice of the scholar called out arrogantly to someone, "I told you it would."
As I was once again lulled to a state of stillness by violins Romero washed me of my stains as gently as he could with a cloth and a sponge. There was no soap, I could not stand the sting, only water, and only when it was ice cold and opaque with blood and shit did the bath finally end. Romero plucked me out and bundled me up in a towel of Egyptian cotton. "At least Kent got the towel right," he grumbled.
"Three named poet," I mumbled.
"That's right," Romero said confidently as he dried me off with no sign of fatigue, impatience, irritation, or disgust. "Kent Alan Ryan, a conceited, vain, self-righteous asshole but also one of your closest friends, he'll never, ever say it but he thinks of you like a sister. He lost his and I think you helped with that."
"The horse lover."
"Yeah, something like that."
"And you," I murmured, "you always stayed with me, even after the form shifting, and after the death of the immortal, always there, always the grave guard."
"Yeah, well it's always interesting with you."
There was a knock on the door and I jumped and frowned when a light trickle of urine betrayed my fear.
"What did I tell you about the sudden noises?" Romero shouted in annoyance as he glowered at the door.
"I just knocked," the poet protested indignantly, "how else should one announce their presence at a door?"
I giggled and froze up, stunned by the noise I had just made. That wasn't right, wasn't appropriate, wasn't allowed.
Romero smiled at me with delight before standing up and turning to the door. "What is it Kent?"
"Clothes," he answered bluntly, "and no, I didn't pick them so if you want to complain about them complain to Damsel. Really should too, they don't even match."
"Do I care?" Romero grumbled sarcastically as he opened the door.
Kent peered in inquisitively and I shrank back into the side of the bath from his probing grey stare. "I'd say who died and made you in charge," he commented bitingly as his stare fell on Romero, "but fuck that's all of us isn't it?"
"Damn straight," Romero retorted sternly as he accepted the bundle of clothes from the poet.
"She's still bleeding."
"Yeah I know alright," the ghoul snapped in irritation. "Is he here yet?"
"This is Kuei-jin territory," Kent answered wearily, "it's going to take time before they believe he's not invading."
"Eastern soul feasters," I murmured as I crawled along the floor, inching towards the door. "Outside the masquerade and the mirror mistress holds the crown."
Kent looked down at me with an unimpressed stare and took a step back as he realised I was almost touching his nice shiny shoes. "You know you seem crazier as a human," he informed me bluntly, "only you could manage that."
I pulled back from him, unsure what it was I had been trying to do in the first place. Was it I or them or us? "You make me nervous," I informed him coldly.
"Really?" he flustered with a frown. "I make you nervous, that's rich." Was it? Where were the coins and jewels my nerves created for him then?
"You're a vampire talking about her bleeding, do the math," Romero remarked dryly before he shut the door in the poet's face.
"That's just plain rude!" the poet shouted.
"What is decorated rude?" I pondered. "Rude with icing? Rude with fruit? Perhaps an insult delivered with almonds or chocolate chips."
"Perhaps," Romero commented dismissively before he kneeled down and started to dress me.
I winced and whimpered with every gesture and felt no better when it was done and I was back in his arms and being carried back to the room.
"Does she need anything?" Kent queried curiously as he followed like an inquisitive hound. A bloodhound perhaps.
"Could try some painkillers," Romero allowed, "but not too strong, yeah she needs them but they'll only fuck up her stomach. Maybe get some soup too, don't know how that will go but it's worth a shot."
"What kind of soup?"
"I liked chicken," I murmured softly, "I think, Sarah did anyway but I'm Sarah, yes I like chicken."
"Well chicken it is then," Kent murmured, "I can do that."
"Can you take the chicken out of it?" Romero remarked in a serious voice.
"Can you take the whole fucking point out of it you mean?" Kent retorted sarcastically.
"I'm serious," Romero retorted strictly, "she can't swallow the chicken bits."
"Shit why don't you just ask me to pull the needle outta a haystack."
"Find the beans in the ash Cinderella," I mused.
"That's Ash's nickname not mine," Kent grumbled. "Maybe the wolf can sniff the chicken out," he added sarcastically. "Leave it with me then." He departed in a hurried blur from the hall.
I do not know how long I waited for the soup. Romero helped me back into a bed already changed with new sheets and blankets and then he sat and waited with me. After a few minutes the scholar Beckett joined us.
"I hope you don't mind the intrusion," he remarked calmly, making it clear that he didn't care if we did mind, "but your brother and er...Damsel was it? Well...I'm no longer comfortable intruding upon them shall we say."
"Archaelogist, Caine seeker in the bones and sands," I replied as I studied him carefully. Dark haired again, why was it all brunettes and gingers, were blondes endangered now? "You walk with madness often for a lone wolf."
"Yes, it is becoming a rather unpleasant habit of mine," he confessed grimly.
I leaned forward and peered up at him curiously. "Do you know about dinosaurs? Dinosaurs are fun."
"I had hoped for a more stimulating conversation than that but I suppose with you any conversation will do," Beckett murmured as he looked about the room briefly before occupying a seat near the door.
"My mind hurts," I confessed, "too sore for cryptic tales. Master was a distraction from the voices." I shuddered. "Master had the only voice sometimes."
"He wasn't your master," Romero grumbled, "but we'll get to that."
"Which dinosaur do you want to know about?" Beckett remarked before I could protest.
"The ones that go Rwwoarr!" I exclaimed.
Beckett let out a tired sigh before leaning back in his chair. "Right, I suppose pointing out that we don't know what they sounded like is of no use to you."
"But they do, I've heard them," I answered proudly.
"Indeed, well I doubt you want an intellectual discussion of them, rather you are seeking a distraction I imagine."
"Yes from the widening cracks of the mind and master calling to pull me to ashes. It still bleeds and burns. I don't want dreams of master, they're sweet but disturbing, most haunting, I want to see dinosaurs in my sleep."
"Well alright there's the Tyrannosaurus Rex, an obvious one to discuss, that means tyrant lizard king although it was far from, the fourth biggest meat eater in fact."
"What are the ones in the centre of the earth?" I quipped. "That go stomp, stomp and make volcanoes?"
"I don't know if you're confusing one movie or two," Beckett answered dryly.
The door burst inwards dramatically and I jolted back with a scream of alarm.
"How many times Kent?" Romero snapped angrily as he lowered his half-raised shotgun.
Kent stood in the doorway, one hand on the frame, a snarl across his features, his dark hair unusually tidy and his shirt untucked. In his other hand he clutched a polystyrene pot of what I hoped was soup and a paper bag. "Fuck you," he snarled, "seriously fuck you and fuck Chinatown."
"Always so eloquent for a Toreador," I recalled aloud.
"I went to get her medicine, place called The White Cloud, thought it would have something traditional, good for the stomach and some crazy man in there starts asking me if I'd like to collect eyeballs for him. So I use Auspex on him, guy's not even fucking human! So I quit that, headed for a pharmacy and saw a noodle shop on the way, figured they'd do soup too. Well I go in and some school girl's guarding the joint with a fucking samurai sword that she threatens me with! Seriously! She called me a demon and chased me out of the place and before anyone accuses me, I did not give anything away to her, not a damn thing! Who let's their kid out with a frigging samurai sword anyway?"
The poet hastened up to me with a scowl and thrust the tub out to me complete with a plastic spoon. "So, for all my troubles and suffering, here's your soup Mal...er...Ari...shit...Sarah, whatever you want to be called. And yes, I carefully extracted every last bit of chicken."
I accepted the tub and spoon gratefully leaving the poet to thrust the paper bag at the frowning ghoul.
"I thought you were a master at low key," the ghoul taunted.
"I am," Kent answered defensively with a glare, "it's this part of town that isn't low key."
"Sure, sure, it's everyone else not you," Romero mocked.
"Fuck you zombie boy."
"Hey Kent, you have a hair out of place," Romero answered dryly. It was enough have Kent weaving his hands through his hair frantically whilst spluttering and cursing as he pushed it down and to the left and then the right over and over in a futile effort to fix it.
"What about the flying dinosaurs?" I queried as I tugged the lid off the soup.
"Not dinosaurs strictly speaking," Beckett retorted, still calm and unflustered by Kent's dramatic entrance.
"You're no fun," I grumbled, "tell a better story."
Beckett sighed again. "Someone else said something like to me, I would say it must be the nature of your clan but you have no clan anymore. Very well, a story er..."
"Wait, you're telling stories?" Kent paused in his grooming to look at Beckett suspiciously. "And how does Once Upon A Time there was a dinosaur go?"
I giggled and smiled causing all eyes to look upon me in shock.
Kent smirked before his grey eyes flickered back to Beckett. "Who would have thought you'd get the smile?" he queried bitingly. "So come on Beckett, I want the story too," he taunted.
"I don't tell stories," Beckett retorted awkwardly.
"That's not true," Kent said, "you're always telling them, just because you think they're facts doesn't mean the rest of us agree."
"Think they're facts?" Beckett repeated coldly as his eyes flashed with a hint of anger.
"Tell the story!" I snapped impatiently before finally trying a spoonful of creamy, chicken flavoured soup. It was sore going down a throat raw from coughing and vomiting and yet a welcome treat.
"I don't know what you want," Beckett grumbled. "There were many dinosaurs once at different points, numerous species over many, many years."
"Boring," I complained, "what about Nessie?"
"Oh now really," Beckett complained.
"Don't," Kent warned him, "her Nessie collection remains in Isaac's home to this day, she takes it very, very seriously. Good question mind, hypothetically is Nessie a dinosaur?"
"Hypothetically Nessie is whatever you want," Beckett snapped, "because a bloated kelpie is just as believable as a dinosaur."
"Oh or one of Poseidon's lost horses," I suggested.
"Right, eat your soup already crazy cat," Romero mused with a shake of his head.
So I obeyed while trying with Kent to get stories of dinosaurs out of Beckett.