Food for Thought [Open]

[Nishaa]

She ripped her wrist away from the barely alive male. Watching him die. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t even look at him in remorse. She fished around in her pocket for her tome. She read the words out loud, the alien language spilled from her lips as she vanished from the small french restaurant. They landed in the basement of the Eyrie. She shifted the body of Pierre over her shoulder in a fireman's lift. She was thankful that vampires were stronger than your average joe human. She made her way to the metal box and hit the button for the third floor.

The box stirred to life, that corny music played in her ears as she wiggled her shoulder to see if Pierre was still alive, she couldn’t feel anything or hear breath escaping his lips. Her blood was dripping down the back of her jacket. It was dripping from his mouth, and she grunted. It would mean she would have to wash the damn jacket, and it was leather. She shook her head and made a mental note to scold Pierre when he was fully turned for ruining her jacket.

The doors the third floor slowly opened and she stepped out heading for Micah’s hut. She walked across the bridge and made her way into the fadeportal. She landed on the tiled floor of the Pandemonium and veered right and straight into her hotel room. The room she shared with Marjani. She checked to see if her wife was anywhere to be seen but there was no one inside.

She made her way to the bed and dumped his body upon the red silked sheets and kicked off her boots towards the already well lit fireplace. She slumped down in the armchair and watched the flames dancing back and forth. She didn’t know how long it would take for him to turn. Nishaa was a patient woman.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

Renewed life, repair, and revitalisation feels like it is just one more sip away and he pushes through every mouthful for it. That is, until the woman rips her arm away from him. It is then that everything goes black – as quick as flicking a light switch. Pierre doesn’t know that he is dead because he’s not aware of anything. He doesn’t feel it when she lifts him up and throws him over her shoulder. He doesn’t acknowledge the complete transformation of their surroundings as the woman teleports them to a different location. Pierre is lost to the transportation of being taken to her room and neither does he feel the sheets, the soft cushioning of the duvet and mattress under him as he is dumped on the bed and left there to return in his own time.

There’s no agony, no loss, no mourning in his death because nobody who knows him is aware of his passing. The restaurant becomes confused by his sudden departure because it is not like the Frenchman to take off without warning. They call his mobile, but it is left in his locker at the restaurant. They call his girlfriend, Marilyn, but she is just as confused as they are by Pierre’s sudden disappearance. After a few hours, the authorities are notified and the missing person’s report joins a rather large pile on the desks of detectives feeling less than hopeful about working through them. The story is always the same and the missing are either never found or are found dead – their bodies drained of vital fluids, ravaged and cold. Any evidence they find on the corpses are fleeting and although some missing persons are suspected to still be living within Harper Rock, their reluctance to come forward and reach out to their loved ones leaves the authorities to assume – but do nothing about – some form of cult rising in the city. Pierre Roux becomes just another statistic, another person lost to the darkness and emptiness that is Harper Rock City. Only, in so many more ways, he is found and he more at home here than he realises.

It is four hours later when heavy lids are peeled back and ghostly blue eyes look – without seeing – this new world around him. Pierre can’t feel much, his senses are hovering just out of reach, fuzzy as a gathering fog. He moves without automatically detecting the action, scrabbling his way across silk that retreats from under him. Pierre ungracefully drags himself into a seated position after a lot of effort – his body working instinctually as his consciousness hovers behind a wall of frosted glass. It wants to break through, but the threat of sharp glass seems to deter it and so it waits, hoping something will break through and reach for it.

[Nishaa]

Minutes felt like hours in Nishaa’s book as she sat there waiting patiently for Pierre to wake up. Vampires were different, each one took their own different time to awake and now wasn’t any different. She would wait patiently regardless. Her eyes were transfixed by the flickering flames in the fireplace. Every now and again she would steal a glance in his direction - looking at his lifeless form.

Four hours later she could hear rustling. Movement against silk. She get up from the chair she had lazily dozed in a couple of hours ago. Marjani had come in - seen to her, they spoke briefly. She had shown him Pierres form. Then she had gone back to what she was doing, probably dancing like she normally did. Her wife the fabulous dancer.

She turns to fully face him now. The man is now sat up in a sitting position upon her bed. His collar is blood stained and she smirks inwardly. She makes her way over to him. Her attire has changed. Into something more fitting for a nightly hunt. Leather trousers - biker boots a black vest top. She looks almost like a biker chick, without the tats and a helmet. Her leather jacket she had previously worn tonight to the fancy establishment was draped over the back of the armchair.

“Pierre.” She said. Catching his attention, she could see those blue eyes focus on her almost instantly. Her voice must be loud within the confines of his eardrums. She snickered a little. A laugh was like windchimes.

“You are dead.” She was forward with her words, as she usually was. “I killed you.” Again, she was being blunt. That was Nishaa for you. Always blunt and straight to the point. “You are a vampire.” She explained. She was now in front of him. Kneeling down so she was face to face with him, the palms of her hands rested against his kneecaps.

“It’s no joke.” She confirmed for him before he could say the catchphrase most humans said when they get turned ‘you’re joking’.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

There is a murmur behind his ear, or maybe in front of him, or maybe all around him. It sounds like it is both close and very far away. He can’t tell if it’s someone speaking or the low hum of a refrigerator. The world around him is dark and shapeless, but it’s slowly coming to light; patches of colour so bright that it hurts to look at them. It’s like zooming into a digital photograph; a familiar world broken into fragments of coloured crystal. Pierre closes his eyes to refocus his sights and it seems he’s zoomed out on reopening. The sound’s still there, but it too has shifted and refocused. It’s someone speaking, he’s sure now, and it’s when he looks at her that it all comes to centre. Those onyx eyes belong to the devil and although he should be fearing for his life – again – he sits there staring at her like he’s giving Satan a chance to put all those horror stories to bed, like God is some jealous ex-lover who wrote a book purposely to spoil the other’s reputation. Only, the woman can’t give him exactly what he wants to hear and tells him something else entirely.

He’s dead. She killed him. He’s a Vampire now. It’s no joke.

Pierre stares at her incredulously before muttering, “Right. Ok. Nice to meet you…”

As the Frenchman makes to stand from the bed, his legs buckle beneath him. The fall sparks something, some wanton memory in the brain, and by the time he hits the floor like a crumpled marionette, he’s remembered everything about what she did to him. A hand flies to his neck, blue eyes almost pop out of their cases to look at the woman who has him convinced she really is the devil. Still, he can’t turn away from those blasé onyx eyes. This woman has put a spell on him, a curse. He feels cold. Sick. Blue eyes search the floor, search himself for a reason why he feels like warmed up death. He comes away looking at his hand, at the dark crimson smear of his own blood that had become tacky with time. It is blood. He knows it’s blood, but he’s in denial immediately. He wants to believe so badly that this is all some cruel prank, that he convinces himself that she’s smeared his neck with paint. He looks at her accusingly, though sheepishly, and demands an answer with all the will and fortitude of a broken man.

“What do you want from me?”

[Nishaa]

She watches him with a careful - yet blank expression the woman stood now, getting to her feet from the kneeling position she was previously in and crossed her arms together so they were sitting atop her small chest. She watched him stare, get up and then fall. Shaking her head and trying to hide her little hiccup of laughter. She wasn’t going to laugh at him to his face just yet. He was still adjusting.

Marjani was going to kill her, she was sure. Not only for siring someone else but for getting blood on their expensive silks. Granted the silks Nishaa had bought, but that wasn’t the point her very sexy wife was one who liked things spic and span. She seemed to be the only woman who could tame the emotionless beast.

“I wanted your blood.” She said rather bluntly with a simply shrug of her shoulder. She didn’t beat around the bush. She wouldn’t pussyfoot around the french man, if he didn’t like it - well, he had no where to go honestly so he was stuck with the Necromancer until he knew what to do, and how to adapt to this life.

“Do you know how nice, french blood tastes?” She laughed. Uncrossing her arms from her chest lifting her arms and giggling like a child who's just been told someone's flyers undone. “You tasted like strawberries - with a hint of..” She paused placing a finger to her lips. Thinking. “Mango.”

She shook her head. “If you want to go back to your establishment I can show you. Pluck off one of your coworkers, do you have someone there you hated?” Simply put, she wanted more french blood.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

Pierre isn’t sure he’s ever believed in Vampires, in ghosts and ghouls and creatures that go bump in the night, because they’re just stories, make-believe tales to scare little kids into being good. Pierre was always good, doing whatever his mother and father wanted – at least once. It was always the same tussle; his parents would expect certain things and although Pierre did try, he generally disappointed. They often gave up trying to make him behave their way. They understood how much of a special snowflake their son was, and pushing him to become anything other than what he was would certainly break him. And now, here was this devil before him, explaining to him about Vampires and blood drinking. This whole tale is turning his stomach, bleaching whatever healthy complexion he’d retained right out of him. He nearly wretches when she explains how his blood tastes of exotic fruit. Of course he is no vegetarian and he’s been to his uncle’s farm, watched the slaughter of lambs and pigs, but somehow this is different. It’s different because it’s his blood and his meat that’s on the menu. He recoils visibly at her question.

“No! Of course not!”

His complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears, but he protests nonetheless like there might be a shred of honour in her. Maybe he can throw himself into the jaws of the lioness to save his co-workers – it doesn’t matter to him if he’s only known them a number of months. It occurs to the Frenchman that this all might be some kind of strange test or initiation, even if the whole idea of it is out there, tres far-fetched. His colleagues had always spoken about the strange happenings in the city, about people disappearing and weird, unexplainable events – earthquakes, missing items, whole districts cordoned off, people jumping incredible distances, even walking on water. Since Pierre has not seen anything strange – until now – he’s certain that it’s all just crazy ramblings. For this purpose, Pierre decides that he will not believe this woman and her words about blood-drinking and Vampires. He might feel awful, but there could be a number of explanations to account for that! At the very least, she could have… drugged him? And even if this isn’t some crazy ploy by his work mates, this woman is most certainly insane or trying to pull his leg.

“I’m not even sure I know your name… How am I supposed to believe that you’re telling me the truth?”

This was uncharacteristically bold for the Frenchman and especially when he held her onyx gaze with firm blues. If this weren’t a joke, she might have to prove it.

[Nishaa]

She snorted. C’mon. Everyone had someone they hated in the workplace, same could be said for her for certain members she worked with but she didn’t want them dead - but they weren't human, if they were then she would totally bleed them dry for funsies. Onyx hues looked at Pierre with curious eyes as she backed off, making her way back to the chair where she collapsed against the plush material. Legs dangled over the edge of the chair as she watched him now from afar, sizing him up - wondering what he was going to do now with the knowledge that he was a vampire.

He watched her with those innocent, doe like eyes of his. Watching her like he was some sort of lamb caught in a wolves trap. Pierre was the lamb, and Nishaa the ferocious wolf. She smiled, taking pride in the fact that he was scared of her, he should be really. She wasn’t a cute little girl that liked to do everything for a man, or any of that princess mumbo jumbo. No ******* way.

“You want to know my name?” She kicked one leg off the edge so it was not resting against the bear rug, toes meshing with the fur as she raised an eyebrow. Watching him slowly. “Why would you want to know my name, Pierre? How is knowing my name going to help you understand the truth of what you are.”

But, she knew how to get him to understand the truth. Getting up she left the room and went to the shop where she gave the shopkeeper a stern look. Whispered a few words to him, an idle threat against his family and the shopkeeper gave her a back of contraband, free of charge. She didn’t want to pay for it and she was the kind of person that would weasel her way out of anything if she could.

She got back into the room, Pierre was in the same spot as he had been before she vanished for a couple of minutes. She brought the bag to his eye level, poked a hole in the middle of the bag and let the aroma of the blood fill the room, dripping onto the already red carpet. She dangled the bag in front of him.

“Are you hungry Pierre?” She asked him. “Doesn’t it smell good?” She was being a ***** now.

[Pierre Roux (DELETED 6974)]

What good does it do the cow to know the name of the butcher? He still ends up as steak. Or, in this particularly curious instance, ends up retching as she shoves a bag of cold red liquid under his nose. Pierre turns sharply away from her, locating the clear stretch of floor that is not covered by carpet or mats in case the retching becomes more violent and… chunky. He hates the idea of spoiling her décor, though he cannot explain why. Pierre should hate her, really. He should loathe her and detest her and push her away, run like hell from this insane woman, but he can’t lift his legs to stand and he can’t find the will to feel any negativity toward her. Pierre cannot describe what he is feeling for this woman, only that he is compelled to follow her. It is like he is under her spell, not some childish love spell, but something that tugs at his soul to become her puppet. He feels as though, if she would request it of him, he would not be able to refuse or lie his way out of compliance.

Blue eyes keep fixed to the floor, watching her loom over him, knowing that she is there and demanding his attention. There is a tugging heat in the pit of his stomach, a scorching bitterness at the back of his throat, and this strange smell of food under his nose – though he can’t identify the source. A metallic scent, sort of like licking a copper pot but is warm and rich and strangely stale, clings to his nostrils. There’s something weird about the perfume in the air, kind of like the difference between the taste of apples and apple juice. Quiet, curious eyes are tugged to the source and he retches again immediately, pulling away when he realises that it’s the bag of red liquid that she has in her hand that was making him salivate.

“What is that?” he gasps. He cannot keep his eyes from switching between the woman and the bag she is holding. “What are you doing? Why are you showing me this?”

A thousand hundred questions form in his mouth but become stagnant on the tongue because there’s suddenly not enough effort to get them out. His focus is steeled on the offering, on what it is doing to him, why it’s making him so terribly sick and hungry at the same time. She must be loving this, the torture she is dragging him through, but even Pierre’s obsessive hold for the woman with the onyx eyes seems incomparable to his want of that bag filled with crimson liquid.