In the early hours of the morning, Ana buried deeper under the thick plush mink of her blanket.
Dawn hadn't even arrived beneath the dregs of mist and thicket of clouds. The leftover droplets of rain had long dried on the window and left dustlike remains on the glass. There was a strange haze of darkness, slowly lightening with every passing hour. Everyday, she woke up dreading this moment the most.
She had hoped it would rain in the time it took her to change but it hadn't. Ana drifted down the stairs and spotted Kol lounging on the sofa. The familiar voices of the Brooklyn Nine-Nine characters filled the quiet brownstone. He straightened when he spotted her but frowned when he saw her head towards the foyer and slip on her sneakers.
"Where are you going?"
She blinked at him slowly. "I'll be back."
"But where are you going?" he pressed.
"Coffee. Morning run."
His eyes lit up with mischief. "You're quite articulate this morning, darling."
"Yes," she said and squinted at him. "Wanna come?"
"Well, when you make an offer like that!" He stood up and pretended to brush himself off. "A man simply cannot refuse."
The winter sun had yet to rise but people still dragged their feet through the Brooklyn streets. Ana's runners hit the still damp, discoloured pavement as she passed the sparse crowds at a steady pace. She saw the remnants of parties, stumbling university students, with the trash and bottles lining the roads. White earbuds rested in her ears, completely off to converse with Kol as he followed her in curiosity.
"Dear god, why do you do this to yourself?"
"Self-loathing," she said flatly.
He barked a laugh. "Perhaps I need to suggest something similar for my siblings. Unlike you, they'd deserve it."
"What are your siblings like? You seem very much like a younger brother or maybe the second youngest."
"And what do you mean by that?"
"You seem like a very contradictory person. Complex." Ana had noticed the two roles he often played with himself. Strangely open yet reticent. Secretkeeper and secret-divulger. Honest yet a liar. She had seen it eno0ugh in some of her cousins caught at the tail end of middle sibling—older and younger, wearing two faces at once. "You remind me of someone I know."
"And what are you?"
"Oh, I'm the worst kind," she said. "An only child but the baby on both sides of my family."
"What does that make you?"
"Terribly spoiled and bullied from both sides."
It wasn't the whole truth but Kol didn't need to know much about her. She was his guide and needed to understand him—his life story, motivations, and intentions. All to help him move through the afterlife. The one question she needed answered, however, he evaded the night before. He had definitely lived for a long time; his deft mind had easily demystified her attempts to covertly ascertain his identity. Not many could do that and there were several species that remained possible for him to be.
"I have three elder brothers and a younger sister," he said. "She's the only girl. We, too, coddled and pestered her in equal amounts. She was the only one who truly mourned my death and that was only for a day. She never avenged me. My older brothers… they felt nothing."
That deep-seated bitterness and rage. Ana almost paused her run to reach out and touch him with her magic to soothe his furor but held herself back. Some people needed to feel things and express them. She watched him shake and his eyes blackened.
Demon, vampire, shapeshifter… he could be any number of things.
She cleared her throat. "Do you really think that?"
"I saw them," he snarled. A range of unfiltered emotions twisted his face but the truest of them all underlined each one—betrayal and hurt. "The three of them made a vow of always and forever. To be there for each other, to never leave one another's side. I was never included in it."
This time, she did stop.
The people of Brooklyn kept walking past, not a single one casting a glance at her. Kol paused and looked down at her, eyes lightening at her face peering up at him.
"Do you really think that?" she repeated softly.
"You don't know my family, priestess," he said. "Your little powers of allowing me to eat as a ghost mean nothing in the grand scheme of things."
"I think you're full of rage not because you're sure they didn't mourn you." Ana ignored the little dig—he didn't know anything about her either and she's had much worse vitriol directed towards her. "I think your anger stems from uncertainty."
"Do you, priestess?" His eyes darkened. "And what makes you so certain you won't regret those words?"
"If you knew, for sure, that they weren't saddened, that they didn't grieve, it would be easier to accept. You could dismiss them with ease and move on, but your family is probably hard to read. Hard to know and understand even to themselves, much less you. You can't tell how much they loved you or mourned for your death. The hope without relief infuriates you. You want them to prove their grief in a way that you can see and understand, but you know that they have their own ways of expressing themselves. So, you're caught between belief and doubt. It's a hard place to find yourself stuck. You want them to rage. To blaze a trail of blood and burn the world. Because that's what you would do. The fact they aren't reacting the way you would hurts because the proof of love isn't there. Except, you're smart enough to know that's unreasonable. So, you're angry at them for not fulfilling your expectations and at yourself for having them at all. For caring."
He swallowed, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists; unable to turn away from her. His entire body was taut like a corded rope holding a ship to port. If he were corporeal, his hands might be wrapped around her throat like a vice as he attempted the night before. The world continued to pass them by. People walked through him and avoided her, unaware of Ava's presence on the Earth entirely.
"But what do I know?" she asked quietly.
She rolled her ankles and turned back onto her path towards the coffee shop.
Silence permeated the rest of the journey to the coffee shop and back to the brownstone's lazy air. It was an ever-present companion and comfort in her life along with self-imposed solitude. She took solace in them whenever she possibly could with the gods' antics. Ana highly doubted it was the same for Kol.
He had followed her after their confrontation, almost contemplative in his quiet, before remaining in the lounge. She had turned on the television for him again before heading back upstairs to show.
Ana stepped into the kitchen, hair freshly dried and braided back. "Kol. Breakfast?"
He floated into the kitchen and held out his hand. She sent another jolt of magic through him as Brooklyn Nine-Nine continued to play in the background.
Ana prepared the five-grain purple rice mix and pulled out her singular dolsot for a sundubu-jjigae which would require a host of ingredients. The two of them would have to split the bowl; she hadn't ever planned on hosting a guest in this place for meals. Luckily she had enough groceries—there were fresh cuts of fish and meat with several prepared side dishes in the fridge. Sear miso-glazed salmon, blanched sesame spinach salad, and kkakdugi would balance the spicy stew and rice.
Kol watched her without comment.
Ana had only known him for a day but could already tell it was very much unlike his typical self. But, she wasn't known to disturb her lost souls from their bouts of self-reflection. It worked against both of their interests of a peaceful transition.
The fragrant red stew bubbled away on the gas-top, fire licking at the stone bowl, and the scent of kimchi and garlic overpowered the seared pork belly. She lowered half a block of soft tofu into the depths. The rice cooker clicked to her right. A nonstick pan to her left heated up and thinned out the sesame oil. She laid out two of the skinless salmon fillets onto the pan and they sizzled away. Ana plated up the side dishes and placed them in front of Kol at the island. She returned to the stove to attend to the miso glazed salmon and she cracked two eggs into the dolsot.
"You have a dining room," he finally said.
"It's easier to eat in here, isn't it?"
He relaxed into his stool. "I suppose so."
"Any preferences for your salmon?"
He shook his head and she hummed.
"Medium rare, it is."
She smothered the salmon in the glaze and killed all the flames on the stove. The fillets fizzled from the residual heat while she shifted the bubbling jjigae from the stove to a wooden cutting board set in the centre of the quartz island. She took out the warmed plates and bowls from the microwave. Ana plated up the salmon and fluffed up the five-grain purple rice before setting it in front of Kol. She garnished everything with thinly sliced scallions.
"Let's eat," she said and clapped her hands.
He struck for the jjigae first and filled the small bowl with it. She suspected he had a palette for stronger flavours considering his favourite meal. Her own tastes ranged but she had a soft spot for the light and fresh Cantonese and Japanese cuisine she grew up on. She could live with this, however.
The sundubu-jjigae was spicy and slightly sour, comforting fare for such a dreary day. It paired well with the mild tofu, soft five-grain rice, and lightly seasoned medium-rare salmon. The soft tofu's mild flavour balanced with the strong broth and well-fermented kimchi while the side dishes offered a refreshing palette cleanser.
"I've travelled the world studying magic," he said after a pleased hum around a spoonful of the stew. "I've never heard of your kind or your magic."
"Have you ever tried to find God?" she asked with a hint of a smile.
He laughed. "Do I look like a man who would, darling?"
"That's why," she said. "Most of my ancestors with these abilities were hermits, recluses, or lived in the shadows and helped in secret. Only their names were ever known, not their faces."
"Such selfishness, if they looked anything like you."
"Selfish?" She tilted her head and blinked.
He reached over with a flirtatious smile but his fingers fell through her skin, unable to truly touch her. "Depriving the world of your pretty faces?"
Ana shook her head, a half-laugh under her breath. "If you say so."
"I do." His dark eyes followed her as she continued to eat. "I do. As I said, I know of most magics that exist in this world and the practices. Would you like to tell me about yours?"
"I haven't used it much here in the past two years since I left Japan," she said evasively. "Unless I had a soul sent directly to me."
"Why not?" Confusions morphed his clear features and he leaned forward. "Doesn't it hurt? The inability to connect with your magic or nature? From my knowledge, it's an integral part of any magical being. To go without it…"
Kol spoke about magic with such an undertone of reverence that she suspected it wasn't just an intellectual pursuit for him. He might've been a witch, warlock, or shaman, but none of those displayed such physical changes like blackening of the eyes.
"I didn't stop. I just needed a break from everything," she said. "But, even then, those breaks didn't last long. That's the way life works."
A flash of surprise lit up his face.
She didn't blame him; she had almost forgotten the amount of bitterness she held for her assigned role in the world. The heavy duty she carried upon her shoulders. But it wasn't her place to speak about it to the dead who required her assistance.
The priestess leaned on the kitchen counter, barely tall enough to be comfortable with such an action.
Her elbows rested on the quartz as she ate, each movement carrying a strangely refined elegance. He could spot the old money, raised with etiquette classes in her mannerisms from a distance. She had called him a contradiction, but, here and now, he would paint her with the same brush. If it had been any other time period, she would've been labelled as unladylike and ill-mannered. Dining in the kitchen, elbows on the table, plainly clothed—the absolute horror of it all—but she had a peculiar grace about her.
She melted into the warm atmosphere as if she truly belonged but something about her suggested an incongruence. A careful sophistication hidden beneath her skin yet overshadowed all else. The morning's half-light cast shadows behind her and the muted city's sun lit her inscrutable features pale gold. That unreadable face of hers angered him beyond belief mere hours ago after she had laid out the truths he hadn't forced himself to confront. It enraged him to think of himself, an Original vampire, unable to control his emotions while this weak little human managed to remain composed. Her status as a priestess, aside.
In fact, her enigmatic expression continued to irritate him even now.
The idea she could disassemble him with ease while he couldn't even pick out a singular emotion of hers unsettled him. The relief he felt around her, the information he divulged without thought—that wasn't like him at all. She was a wisp of a girl and she cut to the quick of him.
"Do you really think my siblings mourned me?"
Kol wasn't quite sure why he wished to hear her thoughts, why he bothered to ask at all. Was it a fascination with her mind? But that wasn't the crux of it. Curiosity wasn't the correct word, either. Perhaps it was her blunt honesty and quiet sincerity. Regardless, something about her ignited the need to be heard, to be seen.
Ana set down her utensils, as if she had waited for this moment. "Do they love you?"
"Yes," he said frankly.
His sibling's love had never been in doubt. They loved and hated each other in equal proportions—even Finn—but their goals and minds departed in paths. Never their hearts, however. It might have fucking hurt less if they hadn't loved him at all, if he hadn't loved them. He might've had their love but never their care, attention, acknowledgement, empathy, or acceptance.
"Then yes. They might've mourned you in their own way. The confidence you have in their love is undoubtable, but you're not sure if they like you. It's terrifying to think that the people you love, the people who love you, don't like you. We overthink and project too often," she said simply. "We all love in different ways which means we mourn in different ways too. It's the condition of free will."
This young girl, so full of faith, and yet, he couldn't sense any form of idealism in her words. Everything was stated soberly, as if this was the impersonal truth of the universe. In a way, he envied her unwavering conviction in her own beliefs.
"You make it sound so easy," he mused.
"Because it is," she said. She rested her chin on the palm of her hands. "The truth is easy. It's everything else that surrounds it making it difficult. The action, the history, the revelation, our feelings—we have so many obstacles to overcome when confronting anything."
"Did the divine tell you that?"
"No." She contemplated her thoughts for a moment as she ate. It took a minute after swallowing before she spoke again. "I was eleven in the Sichuan mountains. The woman who told me was a grandmother who recently passed from old age. She wished to see her grandson enter a temple and go through the process of priesthood. It's what she told him."
He pinpointed it then.
She did everything meticulously, with an unseen gingerness. Every movement and word was precise, nothing wasted. The soft and soothing cadence she spoke with, the deliberation of her words, the vigilance of her actions. She was clear and undisturbed stillwater. Simple, reflective, but holding an untold amount of complexities.
"He, too, could see ghosts in the end. She had wanted to say goodbye to him but she had died in her sleep. The only way she could do it was when he grew into his powers."
"And how does this connect at all?"
"The truth was that she was dead and that would not change. That's the easy part," she said. Her eyes trailed out to the window facing the decrepit garden in the back of the brownstone. The sunlight gilded her gaze, a half-ethereal light exposing the depth of her tea-brown irises. "It's the acknowledgement, the grief, the understanding… that's what made it hard. He took the first step after two weeks and finally saw her."
He paused and pored over her expression. There was a wistfulness to it, the most minute shift. It almost frustrated him that it took so much effort to read her.
"Her favourite foods were traditional claypot rice, raw marinated crab, and drunken crayfish. She liked pu-erh tea and kept a cake of it from her birth year." A hint of a smile lifted up her lips. "Don't think I'm wise. I'm parroting words from people much more knowledgeable and thoughtful than I could ever be."
You underestimate yourself, he wanted to tell her.
Kol laughed quietly instead and indulged himself in the breakfast she made. Who cared what he thought? As it was, he was a ghost following around a living girl who spoke to gods and found herself intermittently haunted by apparitions like him.
Kol was sweet in his own right.
He had attempted to help her with the dishes only to find that he might've been able to interact with small things like the utensils for a time but the sponge and soap would fall through his hands if held onto for too long. She had held back a giggle and sent him back to the drawing room to catch up on the culture he missed while she cleaned up.
She found him enraptured with the antics taking place on Brooklyn Nine-Nine with a contemplative, mischievous gleam in his eyes. Ana curled up in her corner of the sofa and wrapped herself up with a throw. His attention strayed from the television to her when the episode ended.
"We've talked about the fact you died," she said. "But, we haven't touched on the how. Do you want to tell me?"
"I was murdered," he spat out bitterly, mood shifting like a flipped switch.
She stretched out her legs and pretended to tap his knee with her foot. "Any guesses as to why you were sent to me?"
"Aren't you the priestess? Don't you have the answers?"
"Like the gods would make anything easy or simple for me," she said and sat up straighter. "It's never worked that way. The gods prefer me to play detective."
"I suppose the gods have never been fair," he concluded.
She leaned forward. "Were you a demon? A spelled werewolf with an extended lifespan?" An expression of disgust rippled across his features and she pulled back her legs to grasp her ankles. "With that reaction, you're definitely a vampire. I think I know why you're here."
And she wouldn't need to dig that deep into his psychology at all.
"Is that so, darling? Would you care to share?" He drifted closer, dark chocolate eyes boring into her intently.
"You said you wanted to live again, right?"
"Is that the wish of everyone who's ever died?"
"No," Ana said. "Everyone who wants to live thinks that everyone else does, but that's a rather naive school of thought, isn't it?"
"What is there when you're dead?" he said bitterly.
"Well, you're in limbo right now. But beyond that, there's quiet, peace, and freedom. The knowledge of not having to suffer or go on. A lack of pain," she listed off. "People often prefer death to the life they lived here. You can't fault them for that."
"Well, I'm not one of them. Now, darling, would you like to disclose your revelation or will I simply have to irritate it out of you?"
"I doubt you could accomplish that. No one could ever outdo my older cousins," she said. "But, anyway… you can be resurrected. Easy peasy."
He stood up and looked down at her with wild, disbelieving eyes. "What?"
"Supernatural souls like vampires don't truly die when staked. You're simply separated from this plane of existence and you remain in this state of limbo until you find true peace. That's when you truly die. The fact that you're in this state and they sent you to me means it's not possible for you to move on yet. Rules for magic might differ here but not that much."
"How do you know this? Are you lying to me?"
"What would I gain from that? Anyway, you wouldn't be the first vampire I've revived. This would've been much easier if you told me the moment we met." She paused for a moment. "Although, I'm not sure what the ritual is like on this continent but a change of scenery shouldn't change my magical abilities."
"You're not lying," he breathed.
She waited for the revelation to truly sink in. His ghostly hands tried to cradle her face as he leaned down to look her in the eye.
"What do we have to do? How is this done?"
"I need the location of your death. Everything else will be on me like the offering, blessing, potion, and incense. This would all be much easier if I was at home… I already have all the supplies even if I stopped doing this."
"Tell me everything," he said and sat back down.
"Well, your soul might have moved but your death locations hold the most of your spiritual essence even if it's been bulldozed or excavated," she explained. "It's relative to the spiritual realm. All rituals require an offering and a blessing. The potion is the most tedious part. It takes two weeks to brew and requires precise timing before refrigeration."
"What do you mean by a blessing?'
"Oh, just the permission of the divine," she said. "And as the emissary you were sent to, I can provide that. All we need now is your death location."
"Mystic Falls," he said.
She blinked and tilted her head. "Where's that?"
"You haven't heard of Mystic Falls?" he asked incredulously. "It's the centre for all things supernatural in North America outside of New Orleans, Taxco, and Montreal. The birthplace of the supernatural community in this country, the birthplace of vampires."
"I'm not from here," she said. She pulled out her phone and tapped away before her expression turned pensieve. "It's a backwater town in Virginia with a four digit population. Is it even a town?"
"It's the centre of the Western supernatural world," Kol insisted.
"I come from a metro area with over thirty million people, Kol. I live in a place with around two million people. This city houses eight million. That place is basically a bush."
He scowled. "It's where I died."
"Well, I suppose you can show me the centre of the supernatural world before you get to live again. It'll take me a while. I need to do a little research on if any of the circumstances will affect the ritual and my magic's effects. There's a chance I might need to adjust it."
"But I'll get to live," he said.
"But you'll get to live," she confirmed. "I can do it easily enough. You can stop driving up my light bill and wash my dishes in return for dinner, too."
"Do you think this is why I was sent to you? Because I was destined to live again?"
Ava paused and set her phone down. "Kol. There's no such thing as destiny."
"What? You're a divine emissary and you don't believe in destiny? This must be the greatest bloody joke that's ever been told," he said.
"Destiny doesn't exist," she said seriously. "You chose this."
He looked at her, brows furrowed and lips downturned. "So, what? I just willed my way back into the possibility of living and it brought me to you? By the gods' hands?"
"The gods provide opportunities and paths but they can't force their will upon people. They never chose. You did."
"Darling, you're a bloody ride of revelations," he said. His red lips pulled over his white teeth in a sharp grin. I'm going to live again of my own fucking volition. I could kiss you."
Ana's lips twitched. "I guess that means I have my work cut out for me."
i have a tumblr delicateseraphs. i think i'll post excerpts and i'm open for questions there! i've gotten really far into the story (i love slow burn but i hate writing it because i'm so impatient). i wish my prose for this work was more up to my own personal standard but i think we have to settle. i'm not trying to win a hugo here.
as i've said, english isn't my first language. i don't have a beta. feel free to give me feedback on possible strange euphemisms.