this is no time to be soft

“Yer really bad at this.” It was none of his business that some other vampire couldn’t seem to either a) compel someone into stepping outside or b) seemed too awkward to hold the attention of someone they intended on feeding on. And yet he couldn’t just watch the poor thing suffer, for all he knew she was new at this. Two seats away from her at the bar, he’d already fed for the evening and was just thoroughly amused and somewhat horrified at the display he’d been watching for the last thirty minutes. “If yer trying tae do what I think yer trying tae do.” Jamie actually looks her way and can’t help but be at least a little amused. “Lord help ye if yer trying tae flirt.” @p-earlrenaud​

Pearl was working on a more subtle tactic than what she’d resorted to. The hunger returned quickly, and her need to feed demanded a more sustainable method. Drawing on returned memories, she’d tried to work out the specifics of how her sire had controlled her, but it wasn’t a technique she’d mastered on her own, clumsily trying it out in the bar with failed results. She was determined to not hurt anyone— to avoid as much harm as possible while she learned about what she’d become and how to reverse it. The man she was trying it out on gave her as exasperated look as he picked himself off his stool and found another spot at the bar away from, and Pearl buried her face in her palms. She looked up at the accent, an unusual one for the area, but directed her attention to the half drained cocktail in front of her in embarrassment. “I’m really not trying to flirt,” she insisted in a timid voice, swirling the speared olive in the glass with her finger tip. “I’m just trying to… make new friends.” Pearl winced at the reply as she uttered it, finally meeting his eye.

@p-earlrenaud​

She was starting to dream of the dead, and because of it Laila had taken to walking in the night, trailing aimlessly along the cobbled stone until tiredness took its hold and she made her way back home. Corinth grew quieter as evening pulled the sun below the horizon and the stars began to populate the sky, the wolf turned down unfamiliar streets, letting the darkness of the alley swallow her up. It was a muffled sob from a little distance away that caught her attention, followed by the sound of the insatiable- a vampire feeding. Laila followed it, finding a pale figure bent over that of a young man, whose gaze was wide and terrified, darting every which way as he was powerless to scrabble free. Gore dripped from her chin, but the moonlight made her hair silvery, ethereal. Instincts had her lurching forward, tossing the vampire against the brick of the wall. She was brute strength and ferocity, flinty eyes fixed themselves upon the other woman as her prey scurried away. It was then that she stopped, falling into herself. A ghost stood before her in the body of a demon, she recognized the blue eyes, but not the hunger that they held, nor the fury at being stopped. Laila’s breath shortened and she bit into her jaw, saying the name that she hadn’t uttered in years. “Pearl?”

Pearl had never known a hunger like this— ripping her apart from the inside, demanding satiation like a living thing. For days after the first feeding, she’d tried to fight it, folding in on herself in her darkened hotel room, gripping her sides and willing herself to not feel anything, uttering childhood prayers that had gone rusty in the years since she’s needed them. The day time was for penance, but night was a solace. Setting out on the quiet streets she reluctantly tested herself— her hearing, her strength, scent. The world now had a beating pulse that she could feel, one alive with the living thrum of coursing blood.

This is not who you are.

She still looked like herself, and this made feeding easier. Pearl doubted any good intentions when those walking the same darkened Grecian streets and alleyways asked what she was doing out so late at night, asking if she was heading home, inquiring if her boyfriend knew where she was. She could tell herself that these weren’t good people after the deed was done, but no one deserved to be on the receiving end of her un-controlled hunger.

Her current victim was one of the like— pressing a hand to the small of her back and insisting on walking her home, guiding her along the narrow laneways between buildings far from foot traffic. When the sound of the city faded to a buzz, she turned to feed. She forgot restraint when she began, using her strength to keep him from struggling as she weakened him. Engrossed by feeding, she failed to notice the approach of the other woman.

Thrown back but not hurt, Pearl picked herself up, bristling with a new-found anger as she turned to her, her muscles instinctually tensing as if preparing for a fight. It was her name that dissolved the fury, parting the greyed clouds. The face was familiar, beautiful but strange to her. The voice was a memory that she couldn’t quite place, half-forgotten, disguised in the haze of a forgotten dream. “Who are you?” Pearl demanded, her voice lacking menace as regret seeped in. She brushed the back of her hand over her mouth, shuddering at the blood that stained it.