^-^

It was madness, that night. Those who lived in the ‘city’- town, really, or village- would have thought the participants even more like monsters than they normally did. Almost anyone would. The castle had been properly rebuilt, with bedrooms for all of them despite the fact that they didn’t sleep; it contained enormous rooms, winding corridors, high ceilings, and a ballroom. The moon had hung fat and red, casting twisted dark shadows, but the torches on the walls had burned brightly. There was not quite a fountain, to the dismay of some, but everyone who entered the ballroom had crystal glasses of the same red liquid. 

he looks like a crime scene, I think, a murder- but not a victim, not him, no-one could look at him like this, in his element, drunk on the euphoria that filled the air from all of us in the same room together, indulging our newfound natures, no-one could look at him playing the host and topping up our glasses from unmarked bottles that look enough like normal alcohol bottles so that everyone can pretend to be civilised creatures, no-one could watch our delightful, impeccable, ravenous spectacle and think he was a victim- but he looks like something out of a detective book, a penny dreadful, the lace on his shirt tarnished incarnadine in places. the rest of his clothes were old but still intact somehow, long trailing black jacket undone decadently at the neck, red silk lining, gold buttons, boots, all combined so that he looked like something out of a fantasy. he could have been from any number of genres, really. 

There were two writers in the room that night, one wide-eyed and ecstatic with the novelty of this riveting new experience, one in an elaborate red dress borrowed from him- the manor lord, who else- and you could see both of their eyes on him every now and then, more so than everyone else who looked at him simply for the pleasure of the sight, for his presence that drew eyes, wondering how they could fit him in as a character. 

If they had asked the watcher, he would have said that was absurd, because this man-thing could never be contained in words, not how he was that night, the night of the party. The image that he made alone was impossible to describe, the way he smoked, for want of a better word, like he was the fire they had set around the town (and the fire the townsfolk had set in the woods, and the fire of the torches up on the wall.)

They all had borrowed clothes from him, really, beyond one or two who refused. Even the second-oldest of them all accepted a jacket that was more of a cloak really, and small bits of metal that shone in his ruffled brown hair. He had invited them all, and in this place invitations were important, to raid his wardrobe that had lasted six hundred years and bore pseudo-regal finery, dresses and suits alike, in order to dance. And dance they did, in constantly changing partnerships, up and down and around the floor. He danced with everyone in turn, danced dances with whole books of unspoken subtext for each person he danced with, for even while they exchanged not a word their eyes and bodies told tales. Even the two who slunk away early, who didn’t quite fit and weren’t quite welcome, who would go through the half-burnt wood to the town or to wherever it was they stayed in the grey areas and think about what they had seen, even they danced with him. 

When they had left the revelries began in earnest, though only through subconscious decisions. That night seemed to remove in-fighting, or at least hide it for a time. All of them, really, felt like a true coven, like a unit, like a family. A strange and uncanny family, but a family who recognised themselves in every motion of each other, in gleaming eyes reflecting the moon or sharing colour with the moon, in pale and sinuous flesh, in polished teeth, and in the clothes they wore, costumes of another, greater age, when the castle had been glorious. Even though looks may have lingered a little too long on one or two of the participants who didn’t quite fit with the insidious, secretive, almost seductive entrancement of the evening-that-became-night-and-morning-again, glances between certain people, there was no cause for concern that night. It was a time to forget any others who weren’t there, to cast aside worry and anger and hate- the sister of love- in exchange for this elysian night. 

aside from when he would dance, he sat there, looking like he was on a throne despite his chair being no higher or more elaborate than mine or any of ours. we had a table and chairs, ostensibly for food despite the foolishness of that pretense, so it held dark glass bottles and a handful of raw steaks. he was the perfect host, of course, don’t let me give the wrong impression. walked and talked and entertained, I don’t think it was in his nature to not entertain. but when he wasn’t doing that, he sat up there on one of the chairs facing the dancing area we had cleared and watched, glass in hand, on the verge of falling, the liquid inside millimetres from spilling. one leg crossed over the other, grin on his teeth or smirk on his lips, eyes darting and dancing across the room and across us, and he drank. I don’t know how much, but every time I looked at him- and there were a lot of times- he was always about to drink, or drinking, or had just drunk. god, when i think about it, he must have drunk himself delirious except you couldn’t tell, he would never show you, but he would have been satisfied ten times over, overindulging, but not- I wouldn’t call him gluttonous- more for the fun of it than anything else, for the delectable sweetness that fresh ruby elixir gave the mind, or for the way he knew he looked when he tilted his head back and the blood went dripping down his pristine throat. any of us would have sunk our teeth into him, you know? not that he’d let us, and not one of us was suicidal- or suicidal enough, i ought to say- to dare even try that without his permission. we all were under his thrall, that night, more than ever. he didn’t even have to try. it all seems like theatre, looking back, how we danced for him. what a ringmaster he was, though, what a director, so subtle and so indulgent and so generous- with his home, with his clothes, with the blood that flowed freely- that we all followed along without a second thought or a backwards glance. we enjoyed it as well, or at least I did. he was good like that, if you could ever call a thing like him good. 

The liquor-like liquid flowed so abundantly that night, it could have filled up a couple of hundred animals. That would be strange, though, for a party so otherwise extravagant, so unfit for the setting of a war- a war in miniature, with soldiers scarcely numbering fifteen across both forces, but a war nonetheless. Perhaps it was older than that, older than some of them even, perhaps it came from some undestroyed cellars untouched by time. It seems the sort of thing his forebears or even he himself would have done, bottled human lives like they were vintage wine. You could believe almost anything of him, he had this way of speaking that would neither confirm nor deny any rumours. It was good, that was certain, and strong, powerful, lip-loosening and temper-softening, enough for even those who wouldn’t drink human blood to indulge without asking questions. True, it was a good night. 

closeups since i know jpeg compression ate details

and a bonus timelapse bc i rembered