#djinnoffire

No beat could her heart make and Bella felt it rushing in her chest. Phantom feelings, similar to the habitual actions her body still took. Vampires who seemed capable of simply...stopping all their mortality once they were turned felt a different breed to the young woman, who even after thirteen years still sometimes took deep breaths as though they might help calm her. She took one now, waiting by the growing strawberry field in the trade district, for her companion.

She'd needed the public, no matter how much she wanted to tempt fate by providing Notelaih with the clothing she had made for him somewhere private. She had played scenarios of that in her head repeatedly when she'd considered how they might meet and each one with them alone, regardless of if she gave into temptation or not ended in her in tears. Guilt would plague her no matter how much or how little she did. The guilt of the letters alone practically ate at her form like some sort of moral infection.

She was going to break her charm, realising some things about her delayed actions, about her own emotions, she knew she needed to, but she would not be telling Notelaih.

Still, she did care for him greatly and whatever guilt she had for the vulgarities in her letters she did not have it for their friendship and caring for him. Caring for him seemed inevitable and so she could not feel badly for wishing to continue, to see and spend time with him.

So, in her red fabric near the same colour as the strawberries themselves, thick wool fabric with a stiff toile de jouy corset around her waist in black, the artistry in red, she stood waiting. Hanging from thin fingers was a small muslin bag that contained what she had made for him, the insides hidden by a ribbon used to hold the opening together. Bella had to simply hope the man liked it...

Wind struck hard by the sea, cold salt water's scent picked up by it, billowing through the long fur cloak Taurus wore to keep himself warm in the winter months. It was not nearly so bad as it had been but by the sea it hit him like a stiff drink. "Unload the delivery," he told a few members of the pack, a docked boat holding some items he intended to deliver to a duke in Withermore. "We'll take it all tonight and start travelling in the morning."

No part of him worried about the surrounding populace of the docks. He had grown up in Destarin, so much as someone as transient as his people could grow up anywhere. The docks had some shady types but it was the innocent who were unsafe in treacherous spaces, not the other treacherous people. He was, at least in his own opinion, by no means evil, but he was also by no means innocent.

"Don't linger," he told the pack members who threw the crates onto the back of the cart. "I'll follow when I'm done talking about our next shipment."

The sun, she could feel it, moving throughout the night, hidden away, like her body was naturally aware of it's presence just behind whatever cloaked it. This was the second time she had approached the djinn's home, the night prior the sun had started to return and Bella had needed to flee before she found herself up in smoke, perhaps the only fire the djinn may not have been pleased with. Before departing she had left him a note, asking for him to remain in the apartment after sunset so she might see him.

Only that, nothing more. No explanation.

Bella knew he must have seen her at the ballot count with Valentin, the vampire had been laying kisses to the roundness of her cheeks all evening, Bella's fingers entwined with his or wrapped around his arm. Affection between them evident even if Notelaih may not have been confident on exactly who the man was. Not only that but he might have heard she had moved - through whatever grapevine that connected the gossip of the small town - to a large estate in the Rochielles' area.

There had been moments of concern on her part for how Notelaih must have been feeling but in truth it was a lot of change for the woman who had been stagnant for so long now. Good change was still change and Bella still found when she slept alone, despite having a sun sealed room to sleep in with a large bed, pulling out her coffin and wrapping herself up in a blanket to sleep. No part of her had ever become used to sleeping without her wings, and though Valentin's presence gave her something more precious to wrap around herself, on days when he worked and she slept alone, unable to remain awake as fully as he could, she needed to feel that protection. Small things that to the woman felt quite large.

As things had settled, however, she knew she desired to return to her friendship with Notelaih, and knew she too owed the djinn a conversation. Much like she had replayed conversations in her head with Valentin that had not remotely been what occured, she had played the one she was about to have with Notelaih many times prior to coming to his home the evening before, but also through the day she had just slept through. She truly had no idea how the being would react.

So it was, with hopeful caution, that the vampire knocked against the wood of the apartment above the small store. A surprising location, but any would have been since Bella imagined he had been able to create a desert for himself in the town, to have a home of stone on a bed of sand, fires everywhere and gossimer curtains that let all manner of light in. Perhaps her imagination truly did run wild.

In the end however, reality mattered more, and Bella waited outside the door, in the darkness of the night, for her djinn to determine if any part of her imagined words with him would become truths.

My Serenity,

As you spend your days in the light of the burning sun, surely comforted by the fires that swirl around it's ever moving form, I hide away in my coffin, scented like death, or perhaps so frequently used by myself it is merely my own scent I am having reflected back at me. My words are not intended to sound jealous, they are not, I have not missed the sun for a moment, but I do miss company throughout my day.

I hear Merry sometimes, moving about in the room outside the coffin. I wonder sometimes if he assumes the moment I lay down I am asleep and that his practicing of acts is private, or if perhaps he knows I am able to hear him with his occasional company in the lace covered bed I have no use for.

Hearing him is not the same as company, however, and in the moments before I put quill to parchment I wondered if I should rip the necklace from my neck that hides my presence from my sire. Summon him in the heat of the day and hope to rise him from his own slumber with joy and want. Yet I fear he will not come. Which is why it still hides within the silk of my gown. I fear he knows where I am, regardless of magical attempts to hide myself, and that removing it will do nothing at all. He is smart. I thought the charm would only hide me for a few days as his intellect would allow him to simply find me without a need for his connection to me as my sire, but it has been far longer and I fear whatever affection I felt was never reciprocated and any belief he held care or passion for me was in my naive young mind.

I cannot tell Merry how much I worry on it. It might make me a cruel friend, but I fear he too is young and hurt. I don't want him to overburden himself with my fears.

Maybe I naively also believe you are older and stronger and more capable of hearing my fears. Or perhaps I am simply selfish and would rather be comforted by someone who wants me than someone who sees me as maternally as my friend. Worse still, perhaps I think of you too often when I am alone in this coffin and your name was simply the first to stir in me beyond his, especially when both of you are so often intermingled in my thoughts.

My letter won't reach you until the sun sets but I am comforted having written it with thoughts of those shifting eyes of yours taking in my private thoughts.

Bellamy.

The young vampire stood outside of Merrymock's estate, the one he had claimed as Governor, a concept that now seemed relatively up in the air. He was likely inside, but Notelaih wasn't, and Bella had not seen him since their fight. She had attempted to see him a few times, but felt uncomfortable leaving letters at his home, and once the deaths of the council members became more prominent she had taken to remaining in the St John's estate for her own safety. This cause to leave was valid, however, and she intended to remain outside in the small garden of the modest home until Notelaih's arrival, even if it meant being in the line of sight for some potential killer.

Bella could defend herself, of course, hidden within the long cloak she wore, burgandy velvet draped around her dark hair as the cloak's hood hung over her, was a blade and yet it likely would have been the last thing she'd draw after her claws and her fangs, after her companions had taken their share of flesh from whoever came close. The wolves, as such, were with her. Each more alert than normal, one by her side, the other searching the grounds on behalf of the entire council. Regardless of if she could defend herself though, she was not stupid enough to be ignorant of potential danger when it could be avoided, which was why she had remained in her home with her sire.

Bella had stilled missed Notelaih.

This missing him became especially true when Valentin mentioned he had come by the estate to introduce himself. He had wished to try and know him and Bella had to assume that was for her benefit, even without asking further on the interaction she assumed it had gone poorly. Poorly to Notelaih, at least. Valentin had seemed rather indifferent, only mentioning it as Bella had asked about the deliveries that had arrived earlier in the day, arrived at the same time Valentin had dismissed Notelaih apparently.

One of her wolves stepped forward at the djinn's familiar scent stepping onto the estate, causing Bella to do so as well. The woman's hands, covered by lace from the length of her sleeves touching her knuckles, reached for the edges of her cloak's hood and pushed it back over her shoulders. She looked quite herself, cream skin of her collarbones appearing as soft as the velvet, the lace dress contouring her form. The only evident difference was that, unlike her typical attire, the base of her garment was not half so worn away as it normally was. Both an indication she had not left home in some time, and that she'd had more time to devote to her work.

"Notelaih," she spoke at his arrival, unsure how her presence would be taken. Should he simply tolerate her there because decisions needed to be mad? Did he miss her too? Was he angry she had not seen him since she had become distressed by his words?

The young vampire had not seen Notelaih since his words had distressed her and had regretted it near instantly. She had promised him that if he was to do anything distressing to her she would choose to push through to understand and she had not, she had allowed herself to fall back into old patterns and run, as she had since her wings had been poisoned. It was a hard habit to break when the first instance of it had granted her freedom for the first time in her life. Running from something bad had worked...the first time. Each time since it had been a crutch. And much like when she had run from Valentin Bella had allowed her fear of the repercussions to her actions to keep her away.

Upon the death of the other representative though Bella could no longer allow her fears to keep her away, because a bigger fear had risen, that Notelaih would be the next one found in the town's centre. Whatever repercussion talking to him would have certainly seemed better than none at all and Bella would not forgive herself if he died thinking she felt some way she did not regarding him.

Even fears for herself had taken over and whenever Bella left the home now she was either with her wolves or with Valentin, there were no exceptions. In this instance as she came to Notelaih's apartments at sundown, Bella was escorted by both wolves, Silk the soft dark wolf by her side while Quilt the coarse brown wolf moving between checking ahead and checking behind them, guarding behind Bella once she had entered the building he resided in.

Her fingers lowered the hood of her cloak, black velvet resting over her shoulders before she knocked softly against Notelaih's door. Worry unable to be hidden from from sweet features, a far cry from the stoic nature of her expression when they had first met. Now no reaction seemed very hidden from him, each quite exposed as, in this moment, her concerns certainly were. For whatever purpose had been behind Notelaih's words the last time they had met, whatever intentions he'd had in learning about her, Bella had shared things with him. It was hard to let go of that.