Post by theliontamer♥ on Apr 23, 2008 13:01:34 GMT -8
A vampire did not dream.
The redhead twisted ever so slightly, shuddering, fighting the thoughts that drifted and flashed through her mind.
A vampire did not sleep, so she could not dream.
She herself was a nightmare. A vampire could not have nightmares.
Yet the images flashed before her, vivid and mocking, a crown of blonde mettling slowly into a wreath of vibrant and perfectly ripe strawberries. She could only watch in horror as the strawberries crumpled and died, and she realized that the vibrant strawberry was now a pulsing mass of staining red, rotting with the stench of death and blood. No movement would enable her to stop this transformation, to end the horrible sight before her.
She could not remember why this memory flashed before her eyes, nor why it changed and mangled itself so. And again, just beyond her conscious thought, she found a delicate child sitting at her feet, offering an identical doll towards her. The doll, only a fraction of her size yet just as beautiful, stared at her, carved into immortality. Just as the child. Perfect blonde curls bounced ever so slightly as she took the doll from her, two pairs of deep blue eyes wise beyond their years staring back at her. Sienna glanced away from the doll to watch the child, running her fingers over the smoothly crafted porcelain.
Soft footsteps informed her that the child no longer sat by her feet, and she caught a flurry of strawberry colored locks whipping around the corner.
Startled, she trained her eyes downward to the beautiful blonde doll in her hands.
Blue eyes gazed unseeingly back at her. Sienna could not look away. Her eyes were locked to the doll's, whose blonde curls bounced merrily with every shake of Sienna's hand. Terror gripped her and she could see horror and pain reflected somewhere deep in the doll's gaze.
And suddenly she was not holding a porcelain masterpiece but a broken, decayed figure, curls matted with what Sienna prayed vainly to be dirt but knew to be a substance far fouler. The compelling eyes no longer stared, empty, the beautiful blue faded and chipped, the doll's cherry lips no longer smiling. What reason had she to smile?
The parlor stretched before her, and Sienna's fingers clutched the doll with a desire she could not identify nor satisfy. Finally, the doll fell from her uncooperative figures and cracked into two on the floor beneath her.
No sound left her lips, each scream dying in her chest, as if she knew that the silence that trapped her could not be broken. She dare not speak aloud, let alone move from her perch upon the lavish parlor chair. The ringing of the tarnished doll hitting the floor still rang through her ears, only serving to make the silence less and less bearable. It weighed down upon her, suffocating, and she had no choice but to suffer this terror.
She should not break away had she the means.
Her only option lie within waiting, for she knew that soon a crystal, chiming voice would break the haunting silence, a voice that belonged to a young, high pitched child, a voice that would send so many emotions rushing and dancing through her mind. She could not break this cycle; she longed to hear the voice, for she knew the child would call to her, searching, needing.
She needed the comfort of the voice, though she knew it could only last a moment, and she needed to see the lovely, fading face as it peered around the corner at her.
Just as she expected it appeared, though her expectations betrayed her and the horrible shattering did not fade as an anxious voice broke the silence.
"Sissy? Sissy!" the chiming voice cried, growing more distant by the second.
"Joey!" a much younger voice answered, and a twelve-year-old Sienna rounded the corner and scooped the auburn haired toddler into her arms, burying her face in her long hair, tears falling freely down her cheeks.
"Why are you crying, mother?" a new, singsong voice asked, her fingers stroking Sienna's back as she jerked up in horror, still clinging the child to her. The beautiful auburn locks had again melted into the white gold curls and the gentle brown eyes stared, a piercing blue, back into hers. A mind wise for her age examined Sienna carefully as she repeated her question.
"N-n-no reason, darling," Sienna replied, names lost on her tongue, and she held the blonde-haired angel to her chest.
"But you shake so. Mother, is something the matter? You look so very frightened. Mother? Mother!" the child screamed, deep blue eyes widening in shock as she slumped into Sienna's chest, her previously gripping hands falling to her sides, limp. No soft breath beat gently against Sienna's breast as she held her there, and she had fallen to her knees, the child's head still resting against her shoulder. A trickle of blood dried slowly as it trailed down Sienna's cheek, and the once spotless frock was stained with blood and ripped to pieces. Her pale golden halo tangled together, pulled and matted with long dried blood, sticking to her pale skin.
She had never before appeared so vulnerable.
The doll lay, bloodied though otherwise whole, in the corner of the room, and Sienna carefully plucked it from the ground and tucked it neatly between herself and her daughter.
Cassandra had never spoken. Sienna was sitting in the middle of an unfamiliar and forever tainted cottage, the stench of blood and hatred and anger lingering heavily about her.
And the tough little vampire child lay still, positioned against her mother as any child would lay. Had she not been stained with the tell-tale signs of terror and death one might think she merely slept.
Sienna had not witnessed her daughter's death. The vivid terror that relived itself before her eyes was merely a fabricated attempt that failed to ease her mind.
And suddenly the doll that had balanced so precariously between her fingers slipped, falling away. But Sienna had already realized whose lifeless eyes she had been staring into.
The eyes were no doll's, though the depth was as shallow as ones. The painted blue irises held only the dying echo of alarm.
She cradled the child in her arms, amber orbs staring into aquamarine, each reflecting the emptiness of the other.
Cassandra.
The name was already no more than a whisper floating through the air.
Lithely, silently, she lept from the deserted cottage and into the lightening morning, the child cradled safely in her iron grip.
The first rays of dawn hovered just below the surface, threatening to spill over the dark confines the mountainside had become.
Life and death, sun and darkness; it made no difference now, and the darkened mountains fought vainly with the light just as Sienna fled from the light, clinging to life while clinging to death.
The darkness that would coincide with death for any mortal instead provided an immeasurable relief. Light was death and darkness was life.
Cassandra no longer had the light of life, but nor did she possess the darkness of death. What then, did a vampire fear when life and light mattered not? Did she truly die, as Adrien had screamed of, or did she finally rest?
An unnatural being, thrust into a life of darkness, where light was to be feared--what of them? A vampire thrust into life amongst the signs of death could not die again. She had died once, they all had. She had died and now what? Was this life, or would it merely be described as a horrible suffering, a half-dead state of perpetual darkness with no hope of salvation?
Sienna gazed down at the demonic angel, and her perfect features were both human and unnatural.
Was this the same frightened child she and Adrien had discovered that one night?
And Sienna knew the answer at once, both yes and no. It was her fault, her own greed, that damned this child to the darkness, that had gathered her from a bloody death only to condemn her to decades of terror and an unforgiving and bloodier death. The child's life had come full circle.
Perhaps that should be proof enough that she and the others were unnatural. An attempt to change her fate had only intensified it later. Should that fate befall all of them?
These thoughts plagued her, yet her fingers ran through the blood-stained hair and the doubt was shaken. Life had dealt them a different fate, but should that automatically condemn them to hell?
No.
Sienna answered herself as she reached the quiet, darkened place. A curtain of trees shielded her from the taunting sun, which was dancing on the horizon, just out of sight. The slight warmth in the air was becoming more pronounced, but the heat nor the looming danger of daybreak changed her course.
Something needed to be done before she could leave the life she had known.
The bloodstained garments had been replaced with a beautiful white frock, white eyelet and lace-trimmed, and Sienna combed through her cornsilk hair gently, letting each curl fall into place.
She at least deserved this much, both she and the child. Her second chance had expired. There was no third.
The moonlit jasmine adorned her hair, her features again angelic and severely immortal, though the immortality had been stripped and she faced only an uncertain death.
Sienna could not attend to what her fate may be, but she would ensure that the stolen child was returned to her proper place.
"Mother, what happens to the people we kill?"
"Well, darling, it depends on the person. Why are you worrying about this?"
"No reason," she answered, her liquid blue eyes boring into Sienna's as she twisted in her lap. "I was just curious."
They sat in silence for a few moments, Sienna brushing her golden hair and Cassandra lavishing attention on her porcelain miniature.
"And what about us, Mother? Are we dead?"
Sienna did not answer, braiding the golden silk into tiny plaits.
"Mother?"
"No, darling, we are not dead. Where would you get such a silly idea?"
"Unclew Andrew said something about it once, in passing. What happens when we die, then?"
She paused again, finishing a braid before speaking again.
"I'm not sure, Cassandra. But I don't think you need worry about that. You're never going to die," she soothed, holding the child against her chest.
"I'm not?"
"No, darling."
"Do you promise?"
Sienna smiled softly, looking into the child's frightened face.
"I promise."
Her fingers folded in her lap, dirt encrusting her slender nails, the scent of freshly turned dirt hanging heavily in the air. Her own skirt was stained with nature's marks, the canopy of trees barely suppressing the anxious sunlight. She had no time to dwell, not tonight.
Not ever.
The sunlight broke many long moments later, and the shadow of night had long gone, long returned to the others and set out, and the golden haired child saw day for the first time.
The shadows were pulled away, slowly replaced by brilliant sunshine, illuminating the frightful nighttime scene, rendering it harmless and revealing to the mortal eye its secrets.
Nestled between two larger stones, a freshly turned plot lay in peace, its' place finally filled after decade of faithful waiting.
The redhead twisted ever so slightly, shuddering, fighting the thoughts that drifted and flashed through her mind.
A vampire did not sleep, so she could not dream.
She herself was a nightmare. A vampire could not have nightmares.
Yet the images flashed before her, vivid and mocking, a crown of blonde mettling slowly into a wreath of vibrant and perfectly ripe strawberries. She could only watch in horror as the strawberries crumpled and died, and she realized that the vibrant strawberry was now a pulsing mass of staining red, rotting with the stench of death and blood. No movement would enable her to stop this transformation, to end the horrible sight before her.
She could not remember why this memory flashed before her eyes, nor why it changed and mangled itself so. And again, just beyond her conscious thought, she found a delicate child sitting at her feet, offering an identical doll towards her. The doll, only a fraction of her size yet just as beautiful, stared at her, carved into immortality. Just as the child. Perfect blonde curls bounced ever so slightly as she took the doll from her, two pairs of deep blue eyes wise beyond their years staring back at her. Sienna glanced away from the doll to watch the child, running her fingers over the smoothly crafted porcelain.
Soft footsteps informed her that the child no longer sat by her feet, and she caught a flurry of strawberry colored locks whipping around the corner.
Startled, she trained her eyes downward to the beautiful blonde doll in her hands.
Blue eyes gazed unseeingly back at her. Sienna could not look away. Her eyes were locked to the doll's, whose blonde curls bounced merrily with every shake of Sienna's hand. Terror gripped her and she could see horror and pain reflected somewhere deep in the doll's gaze.
And suddenly she was not holding a porcelain masterpiece but a broken, decayed figure, curls matted with what Sienna prayed vainly to be dirt but knew to be a substance far fouler. The compelling eyes no longer stared, empty, the beautiful blue faded and chipped, the doll's cherry lips no longer smiling. What reason had she to smile?
The parlor stretched before her, and Sienna's fingers clutched the doll with a desire she could not identify nor satisfy. Finally, the doll fell from her uncooperative figures and cracked into two on the floor beneath her.
No sound left her lips, each scream dying in her chest, as if she knew that the silence that trapped her could not be broken. She dare not speak aloud, let alone move from her perch upon the lavish parlor chair. The ringing of the tarnished doll hitting the floor still rang through her ears, only serving to make the silence less and less bearable. It weighed down upon her, suffocating, and she had no choice but to suffer this terror.
She should not break away had she the means.
Her only option lie within waiting, for she knew that soon a crystal, chiming voice would break the haunting silence, a voice that belonged to a young, high pitched child, a voice that would send so many emotions rushing and dancing through her mind. She could not break this cycle; she longed to hear the voice, for she knew the child would call to her, searching, needing.
She needed the comfort of the voice, though she knew it could only last a moment, and she needed to see the lovely, fading face as it peered around the corner at her.
Just as she expected it appeared, though her expectations betrayed her and the horrible shattering did not fade as an anxious voice broke the silence.
"Sissy? Sissy!" the chiming voice cried, growing more distant by the second.
"Joey!" a much younger voice answered, and a twelve-year-old Sienna rounded the corner and scooped the auburn haired toddler into her arms, burying her face in her long hair, tears falling freely down her cheeks.
"Why are you crying, mother?" a new, singsong voice asked, her fingers stroking Sienna's back as she jerked up in horror, still clinging the child to her. The beautiful auburn locks had again melted into the white gold curls and the gentle brown eyes stared, a piercing blue, back into hers. A mind wise for her age examined Sienna carefully as she repeated her question.
"N-n-no reason, darling," Sienna replied, names lost on her tongue, and she held the blonde-haired angel to her chest.
"But you shake so. Mother, is something the matter? You look so very frightened. Mother? Mother!" the child screamed, deep blue eyes widening in shock as she slumped into Sienna's chest, her previously gripping hands falling to her sides, limp. No soft breath beat gently against Sienna's breast as she held her there, and she had fallen to her knees, the child's head still resting against her shoulder. A trickle of blood dried slowly as it trailed down Sienna's cheek, and the once spotless frock was stained with blood and ripped to pieces. Her pale golden halo tangled together, pulled and matted with long dried blood, sticking to her pale skin.
She had never before appeared so vulnerable.
The doll lay, bloodied though otherwise whole, in the corner of the room, and Sienna carefully plucked it from the ground and tucked it neatly between herself and her daughter.
Cassandra had never spoken. Sienna was sitting in the middle of an unfamiliar and forever tainted cottage, the stench of blood and hatred and anger lingering heavily about her.
And the tough little vampire child lay still, positioned against her mother as any child would lay. Had she not been stained with the tell-tale signs of terror and death one might think she merely slept.
Sienna had not witnessed her daughter's death. The vivid terror that relived itself before her eyes was merely a fabricated attempt that failed to ease her mind.
And suddenly the doll that had balanced so precariously between her fingers slipped, falling away. But Sienna had already realized whose lifeless eyes she had been staring into.
The eyes were no doll's, though the depth was as shallow as ones. The painted blue irises held only the dying echo of alarm.
She cradled the child in her arms, amber orbs staring into aquamarine, each reflecting the emptiness of the other.
Cassandra.
The name was already no more than a whisper floating through the air.
Lithely, silently, she lept from the deserted cottage and into the lightening morning, the child cradled safely in her iron grip.
The first rays of dawn hovered just below the surface, threatening to spill over the dark confines the mountainside had become.
Life and death, sun and darkness; it made no difference now, and the darkened mountains fought vainly with the light just as Sienna fled from the light, clinging to life while clinging to death.
The darkness that would coincide with death for any mortal instead provided an immeasurable relief. Light was death and darkness was life.
Cassandra no longer had the light of life, but nor did she possess the darkness of death. What then, did a vampire fear when life and light mattered not? Did she truly die, as Adrien had screamed of, or did she finally rest?
An unnatural being, thrust into a life of darkness, where light was to be feared--what of them? A vampire thrust into life amongst the signs of death could not die again. She had died once, they all had. She had died and now what? Was this life, or would it merely be described as a horrible suffering, a half-dead state of perpetual darkness with no hope of salvation?
Sienna gazed down at the demonic angel, and her perfect features were both human and unnatural.
Was this the same frightened child she and Adrien had discovered that one night?
And Sienna knew the answer at once, both yes and no. It was her fault, her own greed, that damned this child to the darkness, that had gathered her from a bloody death only to condemn her to decades of terror and an unforgiving and bloodier death. The child's life had come full circle.
Perhaps that should be proof enough that she and the others were unnatural. An attempt to change her fate had only intensified it later. Should that fate befall all of them?
These thoughts plagued her, yet her fingers ran through the blood-stained hair and the doubt was shaken. Life had dealt them a different fate, but should that automatically condemn them to hell?
No.
Sienna answered herself as she reached the quiet, darkened place. A curtain of trees shielded her from the taunting sun, which was dancing on the horizon, just out of sight. The slight warmth in the air was becoming more pronounced, but the heat nor the looming danger of daybreak changed her course.
Something needed to be done before she could leave the life she had known.
The bloodstained garments had been replaced with a beautiful white frock, white eyelet and lace-trimmed, and Sienna combed through her cornsilk hair gently, letting each curl fall into place.
She at least deserved this much, both she and the child. Her second chance had expired. There was no third.
The moonlit jasmine adorned her hair, her features again angelic and severely immortal, though the immortality had been stripped and she faced only an uncertain death.
Sienna could not attend to what her fate may be, but she would ensure that the stolen child was returned to her proper place.
"Mother, what happens to the people we kill?"
"Well, darling, it depends on the person. Why are you worrying about this?"
"No reason," she answered, her liquid blue eyes boring into Sienna's as she twisted in her lap. "I was just curious."
They sat in silence for a few moments, Sienna brushing her golden hair and Cassandra lavishing attention on her porcelain miniature.
"And what about us, Mother? Are we dead?"
Sienna did not answer, braiding the golden silk into tiny plaits.
"Mother?"
"No, darling, we are not dead. Where would you get such a silly idea?"
"Unclew Andrew said something about it once, in passing. What happens when we die, then?"
She paused again, finishing a braid before speaking again.
"I'm not sure, Cassandra. But I don't think you need worry about that. You're never going to die," she soothed, holding the child against her chest.
"I'm not?"
"No, darling."
"Do you promise?"
Sienna smiled softly, looking into the child's frightened face.
"I promise."
Her fingers folded in her lap, dirt encrusting her slender nails, the scent of freshly turned dirt hanging heavily in the air. Her own skirt was stained with nature's marks, the canopy of trees barely suppressing the anxious sunlight. She had no time to dwell, not tonight.
Not ever.
The sunlight broke many long moments later, and the shadow of night had long gone, long returned to the others and set out, and the golden haired child saw day for the first time.
The shadows were pulled away, slowly replaced by brilliant sunshine, illuminating the frightful nighttime scene, rendering it harmless and revealing to the mortal eye its secrets.
Nestled between two larger stones, a freshly turned plot lay in peace, its' place finally filled after decade of faithful waiting.
Rebecca LeBlanch
May she live a healthy live in heaven, for the life she did not experience here.
May she live a healthy live in heaven, for the life she did not experience here.