It Would Be So Easy [Mora]

[Jayce (DELETED 5615)]

If you listened to her mother, Jayce didn’t have a reason to be unhappy. She had a full ride to college back home, she was smart. She had been beautiful before all those godawful things you did to your skin, Jayce, how could you ruin that perfect skin that God gave you. And your hair, Jayce, why couldn’t you leave it as it was?

A disgusted sigh had her heaving herself out of her chair in the tiny little café in Podunk nowhere Canada. She knew Podunk, too. Louisiana was practically famous for all the tiny towns nestled out of the way in the backwoods. She had been trying to chase her mother’s voice out of her head with coffee and open mic and the warm darkness of the venue. It hadn’t worked, of course. Nothing had been working. Moving to another goddamn country and leaving everything behind hadn’t been working.

She’d had the intrusive thoughts for days now, even now that she was mostly settled in. She could step into traffic. Everything sharp was practically calling to her, high rises, too. Anything that her mind could seemingly put to harmful use. It was distracting and chaotic and above all else, it was working. Jayce had prided herself on rising above her suicidal teenage years with grit and determination and she was backsliding so fast she might as well have been standing on a muddy incline.

The door gave a muted jingle as she pushed out of it, bag slung carelessly over her shoulder. Pressure built up behind her eyes, making her head throb with every beat of her heart, the sound drowning out her own thoughts.

It would be so easy.

The building that loomed near her seemed abandoned, but it was high. High enough that the fall could conceivably do the deed. She dropped her bag carelessly in the alley. She wouldn’t need any of those things where she was going and they’d do more use in the pocket of a homeless person than in possession of anyone she knew.

It was more of a trial hoisting herself up the barricaded fire escape than it was accepting that she was actually doing this for real and not in some delusional half dream she’d cooked up while staring into her coffee. She scraped her knee on the rusted metal, a hiss leaving her lips as she climbed the rickety stairs all the way up to the roof.

There wasn’t much of a view as she crossed to the other side, standing on the edge and looking out amongst the buildings, the dreary skyline and the mottled pavement. She stopped to inhale.

[Mora]

Mora had liked coffee once, when she was human the caffeine had always given her a spurt of happiness. She had decided to take Zara out for coffee, perhaps as a small thank you for collecting her about seventy zombie ears to give to Judas for the next team raid. Daradasi had been growing slowly - the new addition of Kimberlyn had made her happy. The blonde vampire entered the small shop. It was just a corner cafe, nothing special about it. It was run by humans that had no ties to vampire, it was nice even for the briefest moments to believe that this could be normality.

"Mora."

The moss orbs looked up to look at her friend with the steel like orbs, they were stormy grey colour. Mora has fallen in love with Zara when she found the woman, still distraught at the disappearance of her beloved Sabra. The woman had done everything for her. Mora found herself stretching her arm over to her thrall and pat her hand lightly in a comforting gesture.

"I know, what would you like?"

As they made their way to the counter where a pretty little brunette was smiling at the pair, Mora appeared paler than her human friend - simply because she didn't have have that human flourish some vampires had - it didn't bother the telepath she usually said she never got out much, her businesses kept her away. Which, was no lie.

"Latte please."

Mora laughed, as she nodded her head ordering the exact coffee she wanted, Mora ordered a Tea, for effect but had no intention of drinking the liquid, instead she heard a bin rattle outside metal clashing against brick. Odd. Mora told Zara she'd only be a moment before slipping outside, she slipped around the corner and noticed a bag that had been left with belongings inside, she then looked up, only to find a woman standing at the edge of the building. She was lovely and young, plenty of life in the woman but only one question resided in the Telepaths mind.

What was she doing up there?

[Jayce (DELETED 5615)]

One exhale turned into several, her body naturally resisting to what her brain had already come to terms with. Her arms dangled loosely by her sides and her eyes closed, feeling the light breeze against her face, ruffling her hair.

It was chillier in Canada than it was back home this time of year, especially at night, and she felt goose bumps prickle over the flesh she had exposed to the elements. She wondered, idly, at what her obituary would say, how her parents, her mother, would spin it to make her into some ridiculous martyr. The papers there would mourn the daughter taken before her time, leaving bereft parents and an emptier nest.

If she weren’t on the edge of the roof, she would have scowled at it all. The spectacle that would be made of her even after death. Instead, she just kept a serene expression. At least she wouldn’t have to see the crocodile tears and the words of sympathy from people she’d never met. As if they were the ones who had suffered his entire time. Not her.

One step was all it would take, just one. With her eyes closed, Jayce didn’t even realize there was someone watching her, waiting to see her reaction. Would it have changed anything? Probably not. They couldn’t save her now. Not as she gave herself over to gravity and began to fall.

She would look back and laugh about how wrong she had been.

[Mora]

Mora had her moss orbs cast to the woman dangling over the edge of the building, she didn't know the woman was going to jump - to end that young, youthful life of hers how silly of her. Mora didn't really think. She just watched the woman fall. Her body was that of a rag doll as she plummeted to the ground, Mora didn't really think, she acted without hesitation, she caught the woman as she fell into her embrace pale arms wrapped around the woman holding her to her chest. Windswept hair had covered the woman's face as she pushed it out of her way.

She didn't know if the woman had fallen unconscious, she didn't know how hard the fall was into her arms, if it had hurt her - she would have to wait for some kind of response from the bundle in her arms.

Mora being Mora had to save every soul she came across, she didn't understand what it was, and why she was in that mindset but everyone she had come across - every human that was, she wanted to save. Even this woman in her arms, she was sure the blonde had -something- to live for.

Zara slipped out the door way of the cafe holding her steaming latte and the vampires tea in the other hand, the humans eyes fell to the woman within Mora's embrace then moved her eyes back to the vampire. Mora laughed, shrugging her shoulders.

"I can't help it!" She told her. As Zara moved to a nearby bin and dumped the tea in it, but sipped at the rim of her latte cup. "So we will be going home then?" Zaria's tone was sad. This woman needed Mora right now, she had to look after her.

"Yes, we must." She told her thrall.

[Jayce (DELETED 5615)]

The fall felt like she was flying.

Gravity did its trick, sending her plummeting towards the pavement below, dropping through the air like a stone. Her eyes stayed closed, even still, as she waited for the moment where she would hit the ground and everything would be over.

It never happened.

Oh sure, she stopped falling. She hit something that kept her suspended and knocked the wind out of her, probably fractured a few ribs from the sudden halt. That something, however, wasn’t the loving embrace of death, the finality of impact. She was still, annoyingly, alive with an ache in her chest and a harsh exhale.

She opened her eyes, intent on finding out what exactly had kept her from completing what she had started, only to stop. It looked like an angel had caught her. Certainly no normal being could have stayed standing as all of her dead weight came to a screeching halt in her arms. She floundered, mouth opening and closing for a moment in her surprise, before a sound came out.

“What the ****?”

Not her finest, most eloquent, moment, but she would have to be excused because this was ridiculous. Had she actually died? Jayce craned her neck to look for a bloody smear, for her body, and found nothing but another woman holding a coffee cup. If this was heaven, or hell even, it was nothing like she’d heard. For one, she was still in Harper Rock. For two, it hurt. It wasn’t supposed to hurt. She really had fractured something. Awesome.

She hoped this woman had a good explanation for charging in to save the day of someone who had really not wanted to be saved.

[Mora]

She was about to leave, with the little bundle in her arms, she had nothing else she needed to do, she would’ve been quite happy taking the woman to Judas’s crypt where the rest of the family cohabited. It wasn’t anything amazing but it was home – and home was where her heart was; Judas. It was then; when she was fondly thinking of the man did she notice the woman was stirring in her arms – the woman wriggled briefly before firing off some rather nasty language, Mora herself rarely swore. She wanted to know what happened in that simply sentence and Mora wanted to laugh instead she looked her other, curious to know why she was unconscious – or even dead, she was sure the fall would have seriously injured her at the very least.

“You fell off that roof.”

She moved one hand from the bundle, and used it to point to the building she had previously jumped off. She then planted her arm back around the woman and raised an eyebrow. “I caught you.” She told her. She waited for the ‘how did you catch me’ the impact had overpowered an average Joe human, probably seriously injured them but vampires were stronger, and far more resilient. She felt nothing.

Mora began to set the woman down from her arms, she didn’t feel anything broken when she had run her hands quickly down the woman’s body to look for obvious breaks but she hadn’t known for sure if there was anything at stake, any internal bleeding – she would assume there would be bruising, there would always be bruising in a nasty fall.

“Why did you jump.” She asked the woman curiously, canting her head to the side as her blonde hair fell dropped to the opposite shoulder, she wasn’t sure what this woman was up too, why she had an odd death wish – she couldn’t quite understand why someone would even want to check out of life – life was precious, even when a vampire.

[Jayce (DELETED 5615)]

“I jumped.”

The correction was automatic, like a defensive stance on a judgment she didn’t even hear from the woman. And really, she’d stepped off, not quite fallen or jumped, but the point was the same. If someone jumps, it’s on purpose. If they fall, it’s an accident. This had definitely been on purpose.

Jayce fought the urge to swat at the checking hands; if she died from an injury she’d still be dead. And what did the woman care, anyway, beyond being someone with a weird Good Samaritan complex? How had she caught her without falling to the ground herself? Her arms weren’t even bruised, let alone broken. What was going on?

Her brain whirled with questions and she dusted herself off, twisting to and fro to see if she’d hurt herself anywhere else but her knee from the fire escape. She even managed to spot her bag, taking a step towards it before pain lanced into her chest.

She staggered, hand flying to the side of her ribcage where the point of origin was. She couldn’t breathe and it hurt so much. In an instant, she was on her knees, gasping, wheezing, and blood dribbling from her lips. Her case of fractured ribs was obviously more serious than she had anticipated.

“Help.” Jayce managed to gasp out. Where her dormant will to live had come from, she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to die anymore. Not like this. Not on terms that weren’t her own. “I can’t…”

[Mora]

Mora watched the woman head towards her bag. She smiled, perhaps this woman would take it and be on her merry way and would not think to put her life in danger again, and if that did happen Mora could go home a very happy woman. She liked to help, she didn’t quite understand why – or how she just knew it was written in her DNA, even as a human she’d do her fair share for charity she’d donate all clothes, some items – various trinkets and some money whenever she could spare it. Mora was a do-gooder, always looking out for other people, never looking out for herself. The woman didn’t see it at first it wasn’t until after she ow’ed did she see the pain.

There was something going on, something inside the woman. She was bruised, more bruised than she had originally thought. She raised an eyebrow before rushing to the woman’s side. Mora hated seeing others in pain, her first instinact was to help, to save but what she could do – she wasn’t near death clearly.

Though, that changed when she saw the woman crumple to her knees clutching herself, then there was the blood that was escaping her lips and dropping to the concrete. Mora was instantly worried and rushed to the woman’s side enveloping the woman in her arms – she was begging for help and it broke Mora’s unbeating heart – pulling at her heart strings.

They always did that, humans had such a power of Mora, she almost felt sorry for them most of the time. The words the woman uttered were I can’t… Mora understood, she couldn’t die – and she wouldn’t let her she would give the woman her blood, heal her, turn her something – there was something about this woman that Mora wasn’t going to let die. She whipped her head around to Zara. The woman had let the coffee slip from her hands as the foamy coffee pooled on the concrete.

“You’re going to turn her, aren’t you…”

Mora numbly nodded and did scooped the girl up, and took her into the alleyway they were in moments before – she bit into her wrist and pushed it to the woman’s lips. Her mind connected to Jayce’s for a moment, as Zara stood at the edge of the alleyway playing scout. ’Drink from my wrist, you will not die if you do this, I promise.’ A white lie, she’d die yes – but she’d be reborn.