#sabxryu

It was a bitter sense he usually felt being in that quiet place, the expectations he had held for those volumes coating the walls now burnt to ash due to the fate life had written for him. Ruined eyes did little to take in traditional writing after all, the book spines that crowded the shelves now nothing more than headstones marking their own unuse like gravestones indicating bodies below. Though servants worked tirelessly to rid the yellowing pages of dust, the pristine binding on the great majority of novels spoke to a neglect that spanned years. The library was nothing more than a room with thick wallpaper to the man now enwrapped in the pages of his untraditional novel, but thankfully not all stories are penned with ink or led. No not all.

Two stories marked these witching hours as the shadows danced and the silence suffocated; one of fiction, and the other of friendship.

Gyeong Ryu was the reason for both, a tall creature of higher renowned that lingered in the room under the same dim surroundings as the house’s reclining master. Tristan had known the vampire for years at this point, their time together stretching back to his days in France under different stars and different names. So much had changed since those evenings and beginnings, but at the same time, so very much had stayed the same.  In the end, not much needed changing.

Anatole, as Tristan knew him, was a writer now; someone who painted pictures through text and formed masterpieces in his characters. His writing was an outlet for respect from the blind creature. His friend created art, but through literature. Manipulated emotions, but through fictional stories splayed out upon paper. Everything about it the French critic adored, and even personally he found great solace and gratification from the enchanting worlds born across a page.

He didn’t want it to end.

Like a child savoring its sweets, Tristan made up excuses not to finish the last piece of his book and complete the journey he’d started. Anatole had gifted him the novel upon its release months ago, the special edition translated into braille, a more touching present than the aged being had words to describe. Yet even now, the end he hasn't reached.

Though he feels silly in retrospect, there’s always been an almost childlike glee that bubbles up in his stomach with receiving the volume and reading it-- an addictive happiness that crops up consistently with every reopening of the book and flip of its page.

But nothing lasts forever.

He was nearing the close; suspense long since built, climaxes reached and now dwindling down into “wrap up” that Tristan regretted must be.

It was a sad sense that dawned on him, that he would eventually lose these characters, their actions—their words—none of it genuine anymore like it was the first time through.

The main character, Eve, had grown on him. Though her initial personality seemed naïve, unaware of the true horrors of their world, her development unfairly stole that guiltlessness away. He couldn’t help but connect with it. He found himself despising her innocence, her ignorance, her purity at the beginning, but then breaking when all of that was taken from her. Though he had hated her childishness because she knew nothing and it was frustrating, having had his own naivety stolen-- crushed by reality and necessity, he hurt for her…felt for her.  

And now she was gone.

The final page drew to a close elegantly, Tristan’s fingertips sliding into the blank void of unrigged paper and then pausing in contemplation as pictures swam around in his head.

It was over.

Out of every story Anatole had written, this one most of all he felt saddest to lose. Like a glutton he wanted more even though no more was to be had. Though much was solved, much more was left to the imagination causing the immortal’s mind to churn. Questions were raised despite poetic endings signatured in blood.

He wished to ask a thousand things, but he decided on only one.

“Is she based upon your Isabelle?”

The youthful creature inquired it softly, breaking the silence naturally as if the two had been enwrapped in conversation only moments before.

Tristan shifted on the couch, sliding the book closed with a faint sound as he turned his head almost lazily in the direction of his companion.