Ashpects of Hunting (Ash y Pi)

[Pi dArtois]

She came out here a lot these nights, because she could, because there was nothing that scared her or shocked her or for her to fear from the darkened night and shadow shrouded forest. Even though she was raised on the busy streets of a sleepless city she had come to feel at home in these silent spaces. It gave her room to think about what it was she was and where she was supposed to be going.

There was a sense of disconnected peace out here in the woods with the wild animals and small things. She could ignore the political machinations of the city and her abstract part in what those were. Which, thankfully weren’t much.

“I look up because it’s a different frontier and place of endless possibility and unknown potential.”

She wished she could see his face, see the shape of it. Although her eyesight in the dark was excellent it wasn’t good enough for her to know the colour of his eyes or the quirk of his mouth when he smiled. Maybe that was good. Maybe not knowing was better because anonymous was exactly what she needed. Anonymous let her talk as if meeting someone out here on a midnight hillock was normal and their conversation about stars and hope were but the first chapter in a metaphysical nature of humanity.

“Do you believe in God Ash? Do you believe in a God that could make the stars in the heavens and the mole that is scurrying for food at your feet? I never used to you know? Believe in such things.” It had to be the anonymity of being out here in the middle of nowhere that made her mind wander and her thoughts scatter to the winds and with them the thoughts that rolled like tumble weed since her turning.

You’re supposed to question your existence when the very foundation of what you believed to be, was turned on its head. It seemed that she had lived one reactionary moment after another and had found very little time to delve into the adjustments of her world view.

Maybe that’s why she had come to know the names of the stars that twinkled in these Canadian night skies. She certainly hadn’t taken the time to do that in Paris, if she ever got lucky enough for the smog to clear enough to see them. No it was only now, in this place and in this time when night had become her eternal day and it was this she saw each waking moment.

Her voice matched her mood, quiet, introspective, and in most ways, she talked to herself. “I didn’t used to. I’m not sure I do now. But I think there’s now room in my world for the possibility that he might well exist. Like so many other things, I didn’t think did but do.”

She bit her lip then, trying to keep contained her ultimate truth and not ruin this moment with this human. She had no urge to kill him or to shut up him. She didn’t want to make sure he never told of their conversation, she just needed someone who didn’t’ know about what she was to talk to her about their ideas of what could be. To put what she was into perspective.

Because she sometimes felt she had lost what little perspective she had to begin with.

[Ash Shevon]

He could agree with that, in a way he supposed her perspective was similar to his own. After all, it was the disconnect, the unique separation from reality, from place and the familiar that had called him out here tonight. It was what had given the night shrouded parking lots and dark alleyways and rooftops their allure, the way they'd seemed so unfamiliar, so strange when their color was stolen and the moonlight painted them strange and abhorrent to the regular passerby. Most would have considered it a frightening aspect of being out past sunset, that feeling of being stranded in the unfamiliar, but he was oh so attracted to it.

"Yes...it is...but then, this to me, out here, tonight, is the same as the night sky is for you. It is a new frontier, it is strange and foreign and beauteous all at the same time. I feel...inspired, awed, by the quiet, by your presence, by the very fact it is unfamiliar. I love it."

He couldn't not smile at her, sharing the fact that he meant what he said, that he truly felt moved by the experience he was having.

"I do, I believe in God, I have never met him personally but you cannot see the spectacular and not see his handy work in it...or feel comforted. It is the comfort I think...that has hit me the strongest. There is no way to unfeel it once its felt, once you find peace in a place that you never would have searched for it. You can't help seeing what is unseen...feeling the impact of it."

There was no awkwardness, no self consciousness, no second guessing himself or what he was saying, he was beyond comfortable talking with her. Beyond comfortable sharing how he felt and he marveled at it, he'd never held a conversation for this long with anyone and felt like he belonged in it, like they were actually listening to what he was saying. On the heels of that revelation he realized that he wanted to know who she was, he wanted to know more about her, because he knew when he went home that night he'd be thinking about her.

The memory of this night would be ingrained in his mind's eye, burned behind his retina's and it would haunt his dreams and his waking hours with 'could have been's'.

[Pi dArtois]

”I supposed, I would not mind being chained to the night..” he had said.

She had heard him but she had let it slide. How could he know what it meant to never see the light; to never feel the weight of the sun on your features. No more walks in the park, no more runs through dawn hushed streets and sweat making your shirt cling to your skin made clammy from the endorphin push of exerted muscles.

Ice cream. She really missed vanilla ice cream. And her face. She missed that too. She was starting to forget what she looked like and it made her sad, all of it made her yearn, just for a moment, for what she didn’t have anymore. Tilting her face to the sky she closed her eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to feel the sun. She couldn’t do it. Cool winds pulled at her hair and the chill of winter’s whippoorwill made her shiver. Not even the best imagination could return the sensation of a fear free moment on a summer romp.

He supposed he wouldn’t mind being chained to the night? Such bold words; they wer bold words spoken on a night when Pi was feeling melancholy and weak.

“Why are you out here Ash?” she asked, and turned her head to look directly at him. The wind seemed to stop, no longer pushing wispy hair into her eyes. It seemed to her every noise in the forest held its breathe as if it knew something she didn’t. There were no crickets for winter had sent them for a long sleep. But the scurrying of night foraging animals halted, the soft sounds of the forest muted as if they knew what this male did not. It is the silence you expect right before the forest ignites into the deep forest to be followed immediately by the helter skelter flight of danger savvy animals. It heralded its silent toll about the shift in the air, subtle but just as dangerous.

Pi hunted.

She could see crystal clear in this light. What little there was. With him crouched beside her she could see everything inch of him. His face in profile as he peered out into the deepening night and she figured, trying to discern the indistinct shapes she knew to be tall pines, and smaller heartier hardwoods.

With specific intention she lifted her hand, touched his jaw with her small hand, directing him with gentle pressure to turn his face towards her.

“Were you here so I could find you and make you mine?” she finished, speaking the words it seemed the night wanted to hear.

[Ash Shevon]

He had no way to know what she was thinking, that she'd taken his easy going words to heart. He'd meant them, with every iota of his being. He had no knowledge of those that walked the night, no understanding of magic, of willpower, of tainted, blood craven beings that preyed on regular mortals. All he knew was for the first time in his life he'd encountered someone who belonged in a way he had never been able to. She fit with the night, moved with the darkness, her confidence, her quiet presence was beautiful to him, breathtaking.

On some level he knew he envied it, with everything he was, he was jealous.

He already went weeks without sunlight, waking at night, working in the club, going home before the sun rose and sleeping the day away. How could he miss something he'd never wanted? Never cared for, never admired. He saw no value in the warmth, in the autumn tinged days meant for running beside parks, because he'd never done such a capricious thing in his life. He would have had no purpose for such frivolity. Even if those who knew him, who'd seen what he'd done would label what he valued frivolous, eccentric in the worst way.

So when her question came, settling in the air between them, holding a tone he hadn't heard before, an allure he couldn't explain, he felt excitement, anticipatory hope catch at him. Maybe if he was honest, if he told her what he longed for, she would provide an answer? An answer that he'd been looking for since before he could remember. He wanted to answer, but the words wouldn't form, he couldn't fit the sentimentality he felt, the way his heart shifted, pounded and his soul cringed, he could only stare at her, even if he couldn't see her the way she could see him. How could he express, communicate, label what he didn't even understand, comprehend himself?

Then she was reaching for him and he felt her fingers brush lightly against his jaw, the simple touch jarring through his system, putting him in shock.

No woman...had ever touched him.

He focused on the shadow defined features as his chin lifted, followed her direction implicitly, no resistence in him. In his heart or his body. His eyes were wide, but not from fear, just from uncertainty, self consciousness. No other had ever seen him second guess himself, or not think he was good enough or deserving of something, but with her, it was written all over his face.

Denial.

"You would want me?"

The words were raw, hoarse, torn free of his throat, taking all his insecurities and doubts and laying them out between them for her to judge. For her to analyze. It didn't matter to him what she meant, if there was another meaning to her words, if he was in danger. If his life would change. None of that occurred to him, he couldn't see past the possession in her question. He wanted her to explain, share with him what she saw, because no one had ever seen anything worth claiming in any way. Even his father had not cared to know who he was, to take responsibility for the life he'd created and the youth he was a parental role model to.

[Pi dArtois]

“Oui. I do.” Pi replied.

They were prophetic words. They were words simply said but uttered with complete conviction. They were words which have been said in exactly the same way by people for a millenia. Words of promise and of hope and of futures planned and dreamed. The words evoked images of white dresses and towering spires. They were words all little girls who had been read books of princes and white horses dreamed of being said to her.

On a hill in the middle of a forest with a winter moon winking in a cloudy sky one woman said the words to one man. The mole scurried away to scrounge into dew soft dirt to find the cache of wriggly bugs. The owl hooted and swooped, night vision eyes spotting easy prey. Leaves rustled and the forest woke back up, the deep breath taken, held and dispelled.

They were words cities had been invaded for and men wept at the sound of. It is love and it is family, it is dedication and faith, hope and a dream for something better and richer. Pi could have been a bride in white standing at a oak hewn altar saying the words to a human love. Or a nun laid face down on stone floor of the abby about to dedicate her life. She was neither, but the vow was said with as much conviction.

She dropped her hand from his jaw and curled it into her lap. They sat facing one another and she smiled, although she wasn’t sure he saw it. She heard the yearning in his voice and felt a pull of sympathy at the earnest expression he wore as his night blind eyes searched for her face.

“I do.” She said it again.

“But you need to know what it means. To say yes, and to join me. And you have to make a choice, a hard one. A choice to change your life… completely.”

[Ash Shevon]

The sheer impact of her words settled his heart like nothing could. He was well aware of the underlying intonation, of the deeper meaning. He could hear it, how serious she took what she was saying, how much she meant it. It fair left him breathless, left him staring at her as best he could, searching her posture, her face, a sort of wonderment in his own. Did it really matter the promise, when it was the first such promise anyone had ever presented him with, ever spoken to him.

His father had never committed to anything. Had never gotten his hopes up, not even once. Yet here he was, finding himself for the first time, listening to the smooth tones of a woman's voice and finding comfort in it. He didn't know where his mother had gone, didn't know why she'd left, didn't understand what he'd missed growing up, but he couldn't deny that the peace that touched against his heart was the same that would have swelled within his chest at a mother figure saying 'I'm proud of you'.

And he didn't even know her?

It did not matter though, it did not matter that they were virtual strangers, but things never really followed a politically correct consecutive order in his life.

"Then educate me...tell me...and I will listen...I will learn what it is that I'll be committing to. But I'll tell you this before you even say anything...before you even explain anything...the answer is yes. It will only ever be yes...it could be nothing less..."

Because of how she had responded to him asking if she'd want him. It wasn't a crush, it wasn't some overblown romantic notion of what he was getting into, he didn't have the foggiest idea what they were really even talking about. His heart had just gotten invested and it wasn't out of the sort of love one would express for someone they admired beyond all else, it was merely that this...this entire circumstance...felt right. More so than any other time in his life ever had.

[Pi dArtois]

“I believe in God.” Pi said quietly, for a moment setting aside his question about educating him, taking a circuitous route to the truth that sat before him. This was more than just a turning of a man into what they were but a revelation of what she believed, before and now. They were as intertwined as the stars in the night sky dotted above their heads, at one with the sky yet so completely alien to the universe itself. Bursts of light from a solar system far removed from their own, twinkling in their sky. They could already be dead, their light already extinguished in their own time and what light shone but a memory. Yet here they were staring into the sky and talking about possibilities.

In the world he believed to be true Ash’s life was a mere moment, brief and hectic. The frantic beating wings of a moth against the light of a self prophesying destruction. She could offer him more, give him time to … do what? That was the question wasn’t it? What did a man who seemed so bent of self deprecating ones own self want with more time? Wouldn’t the more charitable thing to do is let him die? Was her community service (both humanity and vampire) as easy as, walking away.

Pi didn’t think so. Or maybe that was her own hubris at play. Now that she had found this eternity she felt an undeniable impulse to share in it. To spread it out to as many as she could as fast as she could. Ash wasn’t the first she would consider turning to their life. Maybe she wanted company, a family to keep fill the empty spaces present in her human life. Little holes in her reality she sought to fill with an eclectic mix of humanity and calling it a ‘family’.

It didn’t really matter, not right now. It didn’t even matter to much to her that he wanted it or that he understood what was going to happen. In that moment Pi decided their little group needed someone just like Ash. Sometime thoughtful and introspective. Someone with a heart hidden but felt deeply. Once she turned him he would have time to, grow and become something more than the man she found sitting on the top of a dark knoll in the middle of a largely inhospitable forest.

She wondered if one day he would hate her for this choice or hate himself for it? Would this eternity she offered be a boon or an endless road he would one day wish he’d never set foot on. But he said yes did he not? He said yes and told her despite all that she said his answer would remain that way. Foolish man really, do say such a thing.

Closing her eyes she breathed in. She could still do that. She could still pretend she had lungs and those lungs worked to pump air to a body that no longer required it. But with breath came scent. Loam and leaves, bracken and stick, all of it had a scent, the damp odor of decomposing things and of life finding its place in the circle of degeneration and cyclic life spans.

“I believe in God because if someone like me exists, then surely he does too.” It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds that passed. Moments only, but enough that thoughts as free as the whippoorwill that lifted her hair off her shoulders floated in an eddy in the space between then. Pi wondered if he could feel the pregnant pause of her meandering mind. If he could intuit how much she considered in those brief moments. And how much she had already decided without him knowing anything at all. She doubted it.

“I won’t die. Neither will you, if this is what you choose. We can live for as long as we choose to live in a way that only those of our ….my kind know. The sacrifice is light, the day and of blood. Theirs not yours. Always theirs.” She hadn’t set out to be purposely evasive. But how else were you meant to describe what they ultimately were without appearing comically dramatic. Plus, she was feeling unusually introspective. He wasn’t the only one who had wandered up to this knoll in an attempt to … find her thoughts in the stars.

“Blood is what feeds me… could feed you. And with that blood comes… a sort of eternity.”

It sounded like she was trying to convince him, but she wasn’t really. She knew what she planned to do and was merely filling space with words that seemed like the right ones to say. She turned to look back at him, her eyes glittering, but he wasn’t to know. Blind, trusting human being that he was. She was the predator here, and no soft words and meaningful dialogue about stars and God would change that. He was hunted, dead and in her power, and he didn’t even know it.

She wasn’t entirely sure why… in the end. She hadn’t already made him hers.

Curious.