#saintcecily

She stands before the window like a hole cut in the light. Her eyes are neon midori, gastric acid. 

“I reserve judgment only for the departed,” Nicholas finally says.

To grant them purification or not. Trial by hallucinogenic dreams and pumping adrenal glands. Even from here, separated by the width of the library, his body fills with television static, the ringing in his ears the result of age, perhaps, or a symptom of being too close. She emits an air. Some ionized fog. She’s a walking Tsar bomb, frigid, burning truth and a thousand years of righteous fury. 

Nicholas’ hand stays tented on his book. The spine reads Cecily. Purgatory moans, the inside of a whale, and he sees her eyes glinting. Disco balls.

text stefan, accepting.

( imessage ⤻ cecily ) sarcasm, me? ( imessage ⤻ cecily ) never, who do you take me for?

TWO MINUTES LATER

death is peaceful, life is harder / @saintcecily

"as long as i can stay inside, play games on my phone and listen to the rivulets on the window? yes, absolutely. i'm not like those white girls who take natasha bedingfield's words as gospel. you know the whole feel the rain on your skin, no one else can do it for you bit?"

death is peaceful, life is harder / @saintcecily

it's wild to think that she's talking to the saint cecily, right now. that santa cecilia saw her and deigned her worthy to talk to.

if she still journaled the way elena gilbert did, this is what floribeth's entry of today would look like: dear diary, guess what i did today? i spoke with the lady of the black death; i engaged in dialogue with the mistress of the plague. i sat down with the patron of vampires! isn't that so cool?!

but she doesn't journal, not like that, at the very least. she writes emails to herself more often than not. drags and drops them to secure folders.

there is so much she wants to ask - there's so much she wants to know. to learn. there is so much that can be discussed. so much knowledge that can be gleaned if only she gets enough time to read between the lines, as it were.

(there isn't a lot that floribeth brings to the table, she thinks, in the privacy of her own head, but what she does bring to the table is her steel-trap of a mind; kaleb and mg talked about cecily, certainly, and that word of her spread through europe and beyond but both of them failed to mention that cecily disappeared from the history books around 1360 and why that was so.)

on the other hand there is also this: as much good as santa cecilia has done throughout her long, long life - and she has done good, floribeth will be undead on that hill if she must - the word is far too eager to sanctify and venerate and canonize white people while forgetting - and sometimes even demonizing - everybody else.

there is also this: floribeth knows, without the shadow of a doubt, the kind of world she lives in - it's the kind of world in which they are both creatures of the night but where there will always be a discrepancy between them - between the way they’re both treated by others, by the world at large.

(even so, people contain multitudes, yes, they’re not just one thing, or another. they’re not just evil, nor good. they just are. the younger of the two would do well to remember that; she knows a lot, knows more than most, but she does not know everything. not just yet. knowledge, too, comes with age, with patience, with humility.) 

"time well spent is never wasted and i do so love a good research spiral that keeps me up all night," floribeth tells her, voice soft and demeanor softer.

a beat and then: "so, did you know - or know of - saint kateri tekakwitha? saint juan diego? saint alphonsa? saint andrew kim taegŏn? sister thea bowman? did you ever cross paths? immortals, all of them. quite literally, too."

a  playful  kiss  that  involves  some  light  biting. @saintcecily   ♱   cecily  novak.

josef  desperately  wishes  he  could  recount  each  and  every  step  he  took  to  get  to  this  moment.   this  moment  being  here,   in  some  private  corner  alone  with  cecily  with  her  mouth  on  his.   he  likes  to  think  that  he  charmed  her  in  some  roundabout  way,   that  he  must  have  said  something  right  to  get  to  this  point.   he's  no  fool,   knows  that  he's  clumsy  at  best  in  all  of  his  earnest  attempts  at  flirting,   and  downright  embarrassing  at  worst.   and  yet   ...   he  likes  to  think  there's  something  natural  in  him  that  leads  him  into  stumbling  head  first  into  some  ungodly  levels  of  luck  like  this.   something  in  the  way  he  looks  at  her,   maybe.   something  in  his  stupid  jokes  that  she  manages  to  laugh  at  anyways  for  some  god  forsaken  reason.   whatever  it  is,   there's  got  to  be  something  that  he  can  meaningfully  recreate  to  get  her  to  kiss  him  again  and  again  and  again.   he's  nothing  if  not  greedy   —   now  that  he's  gotten  to  know  what  exactly  it's  like  to  taste  her,   to  be  up  close  enough  to  smell  more  than  just  her  perfume,   to  smell  the  natural  scent  of  her   ...   well,   he  can't  just  give  it  up  that  easy.

and  then,   just  when  he's  fully  melted  into  it  enough  to  completely  lose  track  of  time,   there's  a  light  scrape  of  teeth  against  his  lips  that  quickly  turns  into  a  bite  just  a  bit  firmer.   not  hard  enough  to  hurt   (  not  that  he  would  quite  complain  if  it  had,   especially  if  not  bestowed  upon  him  by  someone  as  beautiful  as  her  ),   but  certainly  hard  enough  to  shock  him.   he  pulls  away,   heaves  a  clumsy  breath  once  he  realizes  just  how  desperate  for  air  he  had  gotten.   ❝  you  bit  me,  ❞   josef  says,   eyes  hazy  from  how  lightheaded  he  is  and  pupils  blown  wide  enough  the  blue  of  his  eyes  is  barely  visible.   he  frowns  as  he  realizes  just  how  accusatory  he  sounds,   fingers  tapping  in  place  where  they  rest  comfortably  on  cecily's  sides   (  when  did  that  happen ?   he  wonders.   he  finds  his  mind  as  hazy  as  his  eyes  are  ).   he  doesn't  mean  it  to  sound  that  way,   to  sound  like  he  hated  it.   the  truth  is  about  as  far  from  that  as  possible,   he  thinks.   if  biting  him  is  what  she  desires,   then  he'd  let  her  do  it  over  and  over  again  wherever  she  pleases  if  it  means  she  remains  close  like  this.   he'd  be  a  liar  if  he  said  the  idea  of  feeling  her  teeth  well  and  truly  sink  into  him  with  purpose  didn't  nearly  set  his  knees  buckling.   ❝  not  that  i   —   i  liked  it.   it  just  shocked  me.   is  all.   i  just   ...   do  it  again ?  ❞   he  finally  settles  on.   cheeks  are  flushed  under  her  gaze,   and  he  feels  distinctly  pathetic  in  his  eagerness.   he  only  hopes  it  adds  onto  whatever  charm  had  convinced  her  to  kiss  him  in  the  first  place.

"Nothing." The truth hung on the tip of her tongue as she tried to regulate her breaths. She could tell Cecily the truth, tell her how she had traversed time and space more than once. She could let go of the secrets she'd been holding onto for years, clinging to them as if they were the final remnants of her long lost love. But the risk was too high. If the other didn't believe her, if she thought Claire to be mad or a threat in any way, it would only prove dangerous for the both of them. Yet, the temptation remained and Claire shook her head. "It's impossible to believe, anyhow. I hardly believe it myself."