Bonding or Trouble? [Charlotte, Open]

[Roderic]

I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. Those same six words repeated in my mind as I stood outside the door to Skylar's sire's place of business. I'm sure she told me he had more, but this was the only one I had been too and remembered off hand. I'm finishing a cigarette, thinking how to approach this in a non-aggressive manner, because anything direct and to the point sets Elliot in some sort of Allurist emotional roller coaster-like all Allurists. Sometimes...I think we could do without the majority of them.

One last thought that was the same six words before I snub my cigarette out on the bar's outside wall and then toss it in a metal city street waste basket and head in after adjusting the collar of my leather coat. I actually wouldn't be here, but Doc and I came up to the same conclusion and when that happens, I know it's the best course of action. Damn it.

I enter the bar and look around for Elliot. Women were ignored, because I'm looking for a guy, and I narrow the search down to dark haired men, because that's what he is...Only, where the hell is he? Then I see him with people. Who knew the guy had friends? Color me surprised.

I'm not a people person, so I just walk by the table and sit at the bar. Maybe Skylar was here. She listens to Elliot-not as much as she listens to me, but maybe he said something really good. Really influential and stuff. Hes not my biggest fan and I'm not his and this isn't a surprise to anyone. Maybe she finally decided family-the wrong family over this family. Our family. There's a reason she's not been home and I can't summon her, and I'm here to find out why. He knows or he doesn't. Those people don't know. I'm not going to waste my time talking about things that don't pertain to them in any aspect.

I order a beer and let it sit there as I wait. I'm in no hurry, but I'm not going anywhere without talking to the guy first. I make that clear as I take off my black leather coat and put it on the stool next to me, turn around to stare at the group, but more primarily at Elliot.

[Lancaster]

Lancaster laughed. Although he was drunk, although he was miserable, it was not something he was doing for the attention. Frankly, he hated the attention. He hated that both women thought that he needed to be fixed – even if he did. It should have been enough to sober him up in two seconds, but it didn’t. Instead, he had to just stand there like a lemming as they spoke about him like he wasn’t there. Well, Shadis did. Maybe she thought he was not cognizant enough to understand.

But he understood, didn’t he? He adopted this behaviour often with drunk people. They started like toddlers so he treated them like toddlers. Sometimes. If he thought they needed it. If they were happy drunks, they’d laugh and generally do as they were told, and go where they were directed. If they were angry drunks, they’d react to the conceived condescension. All the anger had leeched out of Lancaster. As soon as he’d sent Michael to the hospital via his anger, it dissipated. He was drunk and they had every right to treat him like a toddler.

The alcohol never really made him any angrier, anyway, unless it was rum. Lancaster was a happy drunk; which was why he was driven to drink. He hoped that it might help to lift his spirits, to numb him to the pain and misery. Most of the time, it worked. Now, he smiled. He beamed at Shadis and Charlotte because he was genuinely happy that they were both there, though a person could be both miserable and happy at the same time.

When he heard Charlotte’s voice in his head he winced and held a finger up to her lip.

”Shhh, no. No, tha’s weird,” he said. In the end, he was not drunk just because he missed Pi; because he was angry at Pi. He was drunk because he missed Skylar. He was drunk because he hated what he was. He was drunk because he was spiralling toward rock bottom. Again. And he felt pathetic, but he was caught in the whirlwind of a bad habit, and he couldn’t stop now. Not until the wind died down and he was left, dumped in the rubble.

When Lancaster laughed it was at the notion that Charlotte was his adopted daughter. He stepped toward the stool that Shadis offered, mouth open to explain, as best as his drunken mind could handle it, how ‘adoption’ worked as a vampire. Which, he might not have been able to do, because it really wasn’t anything more than an agreement between two people – or, one person and an open family. He was about to ask Shadis how she knew that he liked his coffee black. He was about to say so many things that fizzled and died as soon as he saw the man staring at him.

Roderic.

******* Roderic.

Lancaster ran hot for a few seconds, before he ran cold again. Roderic. If Roderic was here, so too must Skylar. Lancaster tore his eyes from the man, glancing over his head, over behind the bar, up to the stage; he forced himself to focus, he forced the world to stand up straight while he looked for her. But wouldn’t she be at his side already? Wouldn’t she be throwing him off balance in a bear hug, like she usually did? She wasn’t here. But Roderic was. Staring at Lancaster like he wanted answers.

Rather than taking the stool offered, Lancaster instead strode toward Roderic. Strode, and then reached out to the bar to balance himself, fingers curling in to the hard wood. As Roderic sat, Lancaster stood, and towered.

”Where is she?” he asked, managing not to slur the words too much. Why was Roderic here, anyway? Maybe he wasn’t looking like he wanted answers. Maybe he was here to pass on news. Maybe underneath it all, Roderic had enough respect and maturity to pass bad news on to someone who should hear it. Lancaster swallowed the fear and slumped in the stool beside Roderic.

”What’s happen’ to her?” he asked. It was, perhaps, only slightly accusatory.

[Roderic]

Something is off about Elliot-Lancaster-whoever he went by these nights. I can see it a little in the way he's carrying himself with those girls I don't know and don't particularly care about. We've never met, Skylar's only talked about Pi-and I know her. Elliot-he's here and I know him, Aliyah; who's been gone for a while now and some chick named Charlie. Maybe one of those two were her-but neither of them would be able to answer things. I don't think so. She seemed closer to her human band mates than anyone in Elliot's family. Minus the guy I'm staring at.

"What are we celebrating?" I ask him after he asks me where she is; she being my wife. Then proceeds to ask what happened to Skylar. I heard the tone, but I ignore it. He's not my concern unless he's holding Skylar captive or something crazy only crazy people and Allurists do. Something...dramatic. That's the word. Dramatic.

"Got any coffee in here? I need you focused and able to think, Elliot." There's a mild tone to my voice. I now see where Cyth and Skylar get their fine drinking habits from. It's disgusting. "Sit down. Can't have you drawing attention to either of us as you face plant into the wooden bar in front of us." I'm not looking for a fight-not tonight anyways. I only want answers and only a sober person can give them to me.

"She, if you mean my wife, isn't here. Isn't at home. I'm not able to find her." I tell him slowly, and quietly. Letting that sink in. "I thought maybe you knew. Had some idea, even. Far as I can tell she's fine...just not here. It's hard to explain." I shrug my shoulders. "I'm here to find her-which I'm unable to see her here, so I'm here for any sort of answer or potential idea of where she might be. I don't understand what this is. Is this an Allurist thing? A woman thing? Or just a Skylar thing? Maybe, because she thinks you're something great-you know something without knowing you know it. Something she said. Did. I don't know." I turn to stare at him, expressionless, but waiting to find out what this all is. What triggered this. What my wife was doing and planning.

[CharlotteC]

As Shadis spoke, Charlie continued to hold onto Elliot, not so much because she was worried that he would fall over - though she suspected he might just if she did let go - no, she was just comfortable holding onto him, it wasn’t often that she felt close to anyone, and she hardly ever was like this with Elliot. Mostly because she respected the relationship he had with Pi and she could tell that like herself, Pi, was a territorial type when it came to those that she was in a relationship with. At least, that is how she had seen it when she had seen them together. So this, just relaxing into the hold that Elliot had on her and her on him, was novel to say the least. Charlie brought herself out of her own thoughts, concentrating once more on what Shadis was saying, about how she thought the internet was boring. Blasphemy! Charlie thought, but to each their own. Her attention was pulled for a moment when Elliot pressed his finger to her lips in response to her telepathic message.

Something that did catch her attention after though was the fact that she had been called Elliot’s daughter. And sure, in a way, she guessed it was true, though in truth, they were both close in age to one another, so daughter, she was not. She did smile a bit though, her gaze once again shifting towards Elliot, wondering if he would be the one to correct Shadis but he seemed to be thinking about things of his own. Charlie was going to say something, but Shadis continued to speak and Charlie had to agree that it probably would have been better if they had indeed met on a night when Elliot was sober - firing on all cylinders as it were.

She nodded a bit to her, “It can be hard to do something for someone in that predicament.” She said softly, and then fell silent as Shadis went to lead Elliot towards one of the stools so he didn’t have to continue standing. Asking him to drink some coffee and sober up. Charlie almost mentioned that drinking coffee really did nothing for sobering up someone, really, all it did was make a more alert drunk. Still, as he started to head that way she shifted a little just to make sure he got there, but then he stopped. His attention drawn elsewhere. She followed his gaze towards a male, she had never seen him before, but the fact that he knew him, and didn’t really seem to like him, meant that he had to have some connection to the family, but what, she didn’t know. He wasn’t Michael, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t perhaps know Pi.

As he walked over, asking where ‘She’ was, she assumed that the ‘she’ in question was Pi at first, she turned back to Shadis with an apologetic look before standing and walking over to Elliot and the male. She then looked to the bartender and sighed softly before quietly asking him to get Elliot a cup of coffee, the bartender nodded and started towards the coffee pot. It was then that she heard Skylar’s name and puzzle pieces fell into place. So this was the illusive husband of her sister that she had heard very little of. Mostly because since her sister got married, she had not really had a chance to talk to her sister. With another soft sigh, she stood up and made her way over to Elliot, coming up to him and placing a steadying hand on his arm. She could feel his anger, his worry, and a small part of her wondered if he ever got this upset whenever she vanished. Probably not, she was only adopted, she wasn’t his full blood.

“While Elliot has his drink...” She gave a pointed look to Elliot then made a clear look to the bartender that was holding a cup of black coffee, setting it on the bar in front of him, she then looked back to the new male and continued, “... Perhaps I could help. I’m Charlie. I’m also an Allurist, I don’t know it all, but perhaps I can help. What’s going on with Sky?” She asked softly and then once again she gave Elliot a quiet look, silently asking him to take a seat and have his drink.

[Shadis (DELETED 7818)]

Shadis sighed as she set her glass down upon the bar and lifted an arm to simply place an elbow upon the bar. She then held her hand palm face up so then she could rest her chin upon said palm. Her brown hues watched as Elliot and Charlie began to take notice of some man who had walked into Lancaster’s. Even from this distance, she listened to the words being spoken and she noted that they were talking about yet another woman. It wasn’t Pi this time, because the stranger said that the woman they were talking about was the stranger's wife. She felt way out of her element here and began to wonder just as to what she could possibly do to even help. There was nothing really, nothing. It was then that she heard Allurist and the name Skylar brought up in conversation and she perked a brow for a moment.

Was this Skylar also an Allurist? Interesting, she thought to herself before she looked down at her abandoned drink upon the bar. If only she could get drunk, this would be the perfect moment. With her recent sleeping problems and the situation she found herself in, she felt out of her element and expertise. She felt no need to join the three now huddling together, indeed she didn’t for they were discussing a woman called Skylar who had simply went off on her own for a while. A woman that she didn’t know. What did interest her, was that Charlie was also an Allurist and she wondered just as to how many Allurists there were in Harper Rock. The fledgling crossed her legs as a simple yawn graced her lips while her brown hues continued to watch the three from her position by the bar. There was no point to her joining the three, none at all she convinced herself. It seemed like it was an exclusive club, especially with the way that the strange vampire held his posture.

She noted that the stranger spoke in commanding tones and seemed to glower all of the time. Cranky is what she would normally think of such men. A roll of her eyes was given then as she looked out at the humans within the bar. She watched the humans mingle with other humans and listened to their heartbeats. Heart beats that pumped blood and she briefly wondered if she should go off to have a bite seeing as they were particularly wrapped up in this Skylar thing. Her gaze watched as coffee was brought to Elliot and she bit her lip as she continued to listen to the conversation at hand. Really, she would run off as well if she was married to such a man like this stranger. Always glowering and always commanding, it would get extremely boring and old rather quickly. It was as if the man didn’t know how to loosen up and only had one function. What did this Skylar woman see in this strange man? She asked herself.

Another sigh graced her lips as Charlie asked as to what was going on with Sky. Shadis simply picked up her drink and slipped off her stool. She made her way closer to the group and sat down upon yet another stool. ”Perhaps this Skylar woman got sick of your boorish nature. Commanding and seemingly to be controlling at this rate. Not to mention how serious you seem to be all of the time. I don’t know how she dealt with that and married you.” A roll of her gaze was given then as she simply placed her drink back down onto the bar and rested her elbow upon the counter beside her drink. ”Perhaps the reason that she thinks Elliot is so great is because he has a caring personality, something that you seem to be lacking in.” Shadis lifted a brow almost to challenge him, as she was less than sympathetic to someone who thought that they could come in and boss people around without consequence.

[Roderic]

Roderic Other None Luck Sentinet shadow Succeeded
Roderic Other None Luck CharlotteC Sentinet shadow Succeeded
Roderic Other None Luck Lancaster dArtois Sentinet shadow Succeeded
Roderic Other None Luck Shadis Sentinet shadow Succeeded

Elliot's girl brigade decides to join in on our conversation, as if they were invited in to it. I dislike when people just lodge themselves into things that don't pertain to them, but there is one that might actually be useful. Charlie. Skylar's sort of sister or whatever they want to call themselves. I'm not into that mommy, daddy, brother, sister crap. Unless they really are my brother or sister. Or Jules. That's the only exception to that frame of mind.

I'm still focused on Charlie when the other woman-no-the other slag comes up and starts trying to insert herself into the conversation. My attention briefly shifts to her, then to Elliot, her, and then back at him. I stare at him with nothing other than a blank expression, but behind the scenes something else is going on. It appears as if it's getting darker around me and the darkness is rising. As it rises, the shadows start to bounce, or flicker and inch outwards before I finally turn back to the woman and address her. "Your perception of me doesn't matter. You don't know 'this Skylar,' so can't provide me with anything other than something that comes out of a Cow's ***. ********." The shadows seem to almost loom over me now. I'm not bothered by what she thinks about me, but what does bother and annoy me is that she feels the need to speak. I don't know her. Skylar doesn't know her. She's like those old ladies at a grocery store. Always thinking they know how to parent someone else's kid...back in my day garbage. Just talking to talk. Like those garbage magazines that are growing out of trend as each year passes. Her words are unwelcomed, and clearly, my shadows are channeling my irritation. "I'd go sit back down or join that table there." I point over by the door. "Those sluts seem to be right up your alley and able to entertain your kind of conversation." It's my only warning for her to leave, but that warning comes a little too late.

My shadows lash out at everyone standing around by me and the coffee cup Charlie just put down by Elliot. It smashes the thing and hot coffee pours all over the bar. I don't see where the shadows strike the three I'm surrounded by, but I do hear three distinct cracks as they strike the three of them. Or maybe they hit the same person. I guess we'll see who reacts and who doesn't. But for now, I'm focused on the puddle of dark colored flavored water that's starting to collect near the edge of the bar, as if it was doing something more than just making a big puddle on Elliot's bar.

[Lancaster]

Lancaster dArtoisAnother PCNoneReactionary/ AwarenessRodericThrowing Roderic out of Lancaster'sSucceeded

Lancaster snorted.

This was some kind of justice, really – he’d got an email from Skylar to tell him she was fine, just focused on her music. Spending time with her band – not paying attention to her emails, or her phone. It wasn’t just him she’d skipped out on, then. He was about to say something about how she’d come to her senses; she’d finally realised what a mistake she’d made, marrying this fucktard. And she didn’t want to come to Elliot because she didn’t want him to tell her he’d told her so. Somewhere in the back of his mind he made a note to email her again – to tell her he wouldn’t ridicule her. But that he was glad she had come to her senses. It filled him with such hope to think that she had left Roderic.

If he weren’t so blunt about it, if he weren’t so condescending and rude, Lancaster might actually feel sorry for the guy; he could feel the desperation. Was it desperation? There was a lot of anger there, too. He was a husband who missed his wife, was concerned for his wife. And yet Elliot still couldn’t summon any kind of sympathy.

He was saved from severely insulting Roderic when Charlie arrived. She offered her help, but Lancaster just turned his triumphant smile upon her – she had saved him, for two seconds – from insulting Roderic. But he was about to tell her all about how Skylar had finally come to her senses. Again, he’d opened his mouth to do so, only to have Shadis join them. It was as if she had read Elliot’s mind. He nodded. Yes, Skylar had come to her senses. He couldn’t help but be proud of his girls – the one who saw past Roderic’s boorish nature and sought to help anyway, and the other who had her sire’s back, even though her sire felt like he hadn’t really done much to deserve it.

If Roderic weren’t such a prick, Lancaster might have understood the violent fury that was now radiating from the male. To be told in such a manner that Skylar deserved better - well, Lancaster wouldn’t react well, either, if someone said that about Pi. At the same time, however, Roderic did not know Shadis, and Shadis did not deserve to be insulted in such a base and crass manner. Sobering up can come quite quickly when the need to defend and protect comes into play - a need that quickly overwhelmed all else as soon as the shadows struck.

He did not see, immediately, where Shadis and Charlotte were hit, but he knew they had been hit. He himself was skewered through the shoulder, blood blooming and spreading over the fabric of his shirt. Those mingling nearby reacted first to the smashing of the coffee cup, one or two women yelping in surprise. If the smashed cup didn’t grab people’s attention, Lancaster’s shout of shocked pain did. And if even then people were confused, it didn’t take them long to scatter when Lancaster’s stool was sharply thrust backward, the taller male grabbing the lapels of Roderic’s shirt none too gently, hauling him from his seat, manhandling him until he was tossed unceremoniously out onto the street.

”... don’t you ******* dare coming back!” he shouted, slamming the door behind him. He backed up, standing just inside, fists clenched - waiting for the asshole to step one foot back inside the pub. Concern for his progeny outweighed his vigilance, however - he returned to Shadis and Charlie, barely a stumble in his step, ready to usher them upstairs if they were injured and in need of first aid.

[Roderic]

You pay a group of thugs and give them instructions to to go to a location owned by Lancaster`s and cause as much damage to the property as possible. Not long after, you receive word that somebody has put through the windows of Lancaster`s. With a petrol bomb.

If Elliot thinks by throwing me out of his bar and threatening me with profanity that he’s made me scared, or think this encounter is over, he’s wrong. Dead wrong. I wait until I’m standing alone in the streets with no one around and then disappear, as if I wasn’t there to begin with. But I don’t leave. No, instead I just wait. I wait for some loser to enter Elliot’s loser Irish pub, and sneak in as they pull the door open for some chick their with. Woman. My bad.

I head over to the stage area while there’s some down time by the bar and slowly pull out a bear trap, while still cloaked in my hidden form. This is nothing new for me-I’m not a novice when placing traps while in the depths of the shadows. The trap is set under the drums, and I turn and wait for the door to open again and brush past some people going in.

I’ve probably only got a couple of minutes before I lose my control over the shadows that cover me and I’m visible again, so I jet across the street and down a couple alleyways while pulling out my phone from my leather coat. I scroll through some old numbers and contact ‘Momma Bear.’ I’ve not heard from her a lot, just every blue moon, but if I offer to throw some serious cash at something, it’s always welcomed.

“Hey Momma Bear-” I start out before she goes on her typical greeting and tirade about staying out of contact. I apologize to her quick, then carry on with business like usual. “Stairway Harry still around? I need a favor from the both of you. I’m willing to pay 20 stacks, Momma Bear.” I let that sit there, the offer of twenty thousand dollars tempting her. She wants to know more, so I dive into the gist of things. “I need Harry to do a favor for me-but he can’t know it’s from me. You know he’s a little flighty if **** hits the fan.” He wouldn’t ever flat out snitch, but he’s been known to have some loose lips. He’s still pretty new to the fold in Momma’s Bear gang. “You like the triads?” I wait for her reply as I keep walking-altering my direction to Momma Bear’s Clubhouse. “Yeah, me either. Tell him they paid him to do the job then.” We converse about some final details that aren’t anything worth any serious interest, just incase anyone is listening on either end of our call, before we hang up. We’re not meeting at her clubhouse-we’re meeting where I first met up with her in the city. I remember it well.

Once we met up and everything is settled, I pass over the stack of bills I got from the nearest bank and we do the exchange. She gets the money, I give the details of Elliot’s bar and to make sure it’s hit either very early in the night before it opens or right after bar close. When people die...there’s more a need and demand to find who did something if people die, compared to they started some fire or broke some windows or something just as bad, if not worse.

With our business settled, I go back in the direction of the eyrie and take to my hut. I wait for the call from Momma Bear. I wait to hear what they decided to do to Elliot’s lame *** bar. Since there’s nothing more to do than to wait...I go back to whittling this wooden staff I found in a raid a few weeks ago.

[CharlotteC]

As Shadis came up to join her and Elliot in their ‘meeting’ with this male that her sister had married, Charlie glanced to the girl. The way she spoke, there was something that left a bit of a bitter taste in her mouth. She had been making an assumption of Skylar and that wasn’t exactly the best thing she could do. Charlie was tempted to say something to protect the male because her sister, last time they had talked, had been so in love with this male. That meant - in Charlie’s - eyes that he deserved to at least be treated civilly. Granted, Elliot hadn’t been so civil to him, which is why she had tried to step in, to be the one with a clear head. She never thanked the powers that be so much that she couldn’t get drunk.

She glanced over to Shadis for a moment but then right as she was looking back she noticed the way the male seemed darker, like he had stepped under a broken lamp post. The way the shadows seemed to darken just that little bit. It put her on guard, she started to position herself so that she would be the one hit instead of Shadis, but before her move could be complete the mug of coffee shattered and the guy that had delivered it jumped back to avoid being covered in plaster shards and hot liquid. Then she felt more than saw the claws coming at her. She lifted her arm to protect her face and got slashed across her torso, four lines cutting through leather and cloth and skin. Charlie could actually feel the way her skin moved when she breathed.

Her chocolate eyes searched out first for the newest to the family, knowing she had to have gotten hit as well, she could smell three different kinds of blood. Hers, Elliot’s and she assumed the other was Shadis’. Then she looked to Elliot who she heard shouting in pain first but then in anger, watching as he grabbed the male that her sister had chosen and tossed him out on his ***. She had to keep herself rooted in place to keep from pulling her gun and just shooting the ******** on sight. Though, she wondered if Skylar would be upset at her for doing such.

It wasn’t until Elliot returned that she finally looked down, her whole left side of her body from her ribs to her ankle were covered in blood now and she was trying to shake off the hunger she now felt because of such blood loss. Beneath her was a small puddle of blood. She placed her hand on the counter top and didn’t even feel the glass cutting into her hand, nor did she feel her blood slipping from the wound or the coffee mixing with it. She looked to Elliot for a moment but said nothing, she didn’t know what to say, she would just follow his lead in this case.

[Shadis (DELETED 7818)]

Shadis had simply sat there listening to the man’s vulgar words, but she simply did not let it affect her. Such things were beneath her, to engaged in such childish play was to show that she cared about his words and she simply turned her head to the side. To give him eye contact meant that she cared to look at such a rude display. Indeed, he had nothing in his arsenal except for insults and it just proved to her just how uneducated he was. What does Skylar see in this man? She asked herself unaware of the fact that the shadows were rising around the man because she refused to give him the satisfaction of her time. The woman wasn’t going to give him her precious time by paying attention to the torrent of disrespectful words and it only proved to her of how true her original words had been. If they hadn’t been right, then the man wouldn’t have responded the way he did.

So, as shadows lashed at her, she felt the sting as it sliced deeply through her chest and she rose from her seated position with a hiss. At that point, she didn’t care if she was a younger vampire than the man that had lashed out at them with shadows, she would be more than happy to lash right back. He had lashed out for no good reason other than the fact that she had called him out. Elliot on the other hand, beat her to any action and she watched as he roughly grabbed the stranger and threw him out of the bar. ”Motherfucking asshole!” She cursed as she lifted a hand to press to her chest as if she could stem the flow. The fledgling was so tempted to just chase him down and start a fight, she was just so pissed at that precise point in time. No one marred her skin and got away with it. Even if they did get thrown out because of it, she would remember this.

Silently, she swore to return the pleasure of pain. Once she got stronger and she would, she wouldn’t be so nice to him. Oh hell no she wouldn’t. Blood dripped through her fingers and she realized that he just missed her heart. Slowly, she moved to seat herself back down upon the stool and she leaned forwards as she drew in a breath through her teeth. The woman was barely listening to everyone else within the pub, barely listening as people seemed to be exiting after the display that had just been seen. She wasn’t even listening to words of surprise, instead she simply listened to the sound of blood as it fell to the floor. Drip, drip, drip, was the simple sound that she listened to. If she had known that everything was going to be like this, then she wouldn’t have even bothered with making an appearance tonight.

Once, she would have been happy to die and she had, due to her own stupidity, but what she had found wasn’t what she had expected. There had been nothing, she had found absolute darkness that felt as if it had swallowed her screams. Now, a man had lashed out with little to none provocation and she was now out for blood. One day, he would regret this day ever happened and she would make sure that it hurt. Slowly, she rose from her stool and began to make her way towards the stairs, her hand was still trying to stem the flow of blood, blood that kept drip, drip, dripping to the floor underneath their feet. It had been a wake-up call. From now on, she especially didn't care naught for those she didn’t call friend or sire. Anyone who stirred her wrath or lashed out, would get it back ten-fold. Oh she may not be strong right now, but one day she would and she was patient enough to wait.