Path of the Vampire forum

OOC: Backdated to March 12th

<Clover> Had she been aiming for Jesse? Was her aim truly that awful? Clo had to drop the blade to cover her face with her hands. The stench of blood in the air made her stomach churn. Stench. For once, she was certain she could describe the scent of black blood as a stench. The smell reminded her of something she deemed a mistake, even if her childe didn’t mind the missing appendage. Shadows healed slowly, as if the darkness itself were knitting them back together. Raven didn’t know that, did she? Clover had never had the opportunity to sit the woman down and give a lengthy lecture.

Hands still over her face, Clover groaned. The noise seemed to come from the very pit of her stomach, low and pained. She’d chopped off her childe’s arm. No wonder her childer ran away. And she did consider them as runaways. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. Her hands falling from over her face, she looked down at the familiar blade. “I put so much force behind it and,” she stopped and balled her hands into tight fists, “it just wasn’t meant for you. I would have shot you. It’ll take forever for you to heal. You’re a Shadow.”

Clo didn’t want to look at Jesse, not after the most recent events. It was supposed to be a good night, a moment where she finally gave him the funds she’d wanted to give him months ago. “Shooting Okoro was on purpose. He asked me. I shot him. This...this wasn’t. I don’t abuse my childer. I--well, I could. If they ask me. I’m not a terrible sire.”


<Jesse Fforde> It could have been a ruse. Something concocted by the two women to keep Jesse in the dark – incidents where Clover could give Raven exactly what she wanted, and make it look like an accident so Jesse wouldn’t think otherwise. Except, Jesse didn’t indulge in that kind of paranoid thinking anymore, and he didn’t believe that Clover would purposely misdirect him. She was pretty blunt and honest about most things, and if she wanted to indulge in that kind of play with her progeny, then she’d have told him. Right?

So he had to believe it was an accident, and that Clover was genuinely remorseful. But, even in believing, he was still angry. Why was he angry? He didn’t even know why, himself, except that he was. He struggled with it, squirmed with it, and had to laugh as Clover apologised – as if she’d done some grave misdeed that Raven would hate her for. Except Raven wouldn’t hate her for it. Raven didn’t seem upset at all, except for the first surprised shout of pain. But wasn’t that to be expected?

“I don’t know why you’re apologising, Clover. She liked it. Isn’t that right, Raven? You relish pain. You don’t care if it takes longer to grow back because you can poke and prod at it and prolong the ache. You just gave her exactly what she wanted,” he said. Had he and Clover had this conversation? Did she know?


<Raven Talius> Raven’s fingers covered the wound of her right arm and her brown eyes watched as tendrils poured from the stump only to soon disperse just like a shadow. Oh she felt the pain of the wound and she wanted to relish in it, even if it did mean that she had lost her right arm in doing so. However, she couldn’t relish in it, simply because Clover, her sire felt remorse for what was done to her and a sigh parted her lips.

“Clov…” Her words were cut off as she listened to Jesse’s own words and the corners of her lips turned downwards into a snarl. “Yes Jesse, I wanted my arm cut off. In fact, I purposefully dropped by just in case my sire was in one of her moods to harm you. It wasn’t just because I dropped by to make sure that Clover doesn’t come looking for me.” Why was the man always in such a mood when she dropped by?

It was because of this reason why she avoided dropping in, why she stayed away from Clover. Because Jesse and Clover were in love and they were always nearby each other. Always. “While I may have enjoyed the pain that you, Jesse, forbade, my intentions were only to make sure that Clover didn’t come looking for me again.” Her gaze narrowed, before she glanced back at Clover. Her gaze softened before she turned away. “It’s fine Clover, but I shall leave now.”


<Clover> Clo wanted to start an argument. She wanted to scream and point and stomp her feet. She wanted to find some way to communicate exactly why she felt so frustrated. It wasn’t about whether Raven relished the pain. Clover felt as if she’d crossed some invisible line. Yes, she’d given Raven her word, but Clo had never meant to hit Raven, not then. Perhaps it was the blade; perhaps it was the time spent dismembering monsters. The number of possibilities seemed endless, but there were two people there waiting for her to gather her wits and cease her confused ramblings. There were general points that she’d made, even if only in her thoughts.

“I know she likes pain,” Clo frowned. “I didn’t mean to cut her arm off though. I said I would have shot her, and I meant it. Bullet wounds are easier.” Her attention turned from Jesse to Raven, and she stared at the area where the woman’s arm should have been.

<Clover> The wound wasn’t that bad, and the arm would grow back. Accidents happened all of the time. Clover didn’t know exactly how long it would take, not since she’d learned how to heal her own injuries; she could have guessed the healing time at a week, two weeks, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. She didn’t know what she was dealing with. She had a one-armed childe.

“I’m sure he didn’t forbid you,” she countered, quick to use the same word against Raven. “He wouldn’t do something like that. He probably wanted you to be careful, or something along those lines.”


<Jesse Fforde> Jesse had no idea what the relationship was like between Raven and Clover. Oh, he could guess, but he wasn’t sure whether the two would get along better if it weren’t for that one conversation he’d had with Raven. One that he hadn’t told Clover about – and now, he realised, Raven hadn’t mentioned it to Clover, either. Jesse chewed on the inside of his lip, refraining from calling Raven out – from telling her to grow up and stop acting like a sullen, sulking child. She’d come to tell Clover not to come looking for her? Was it a plea for attention?

Instead, he took a deep breath and shook his head. These weren’t the kinds of arguments he wanted to have anymore. Hadn’t he told Raven what he was trying to create, what he was trying to do with Fforde? Insulting her wouldn’t help the matter. Instead, he threw his hands up in surrender. He didn’t confirm nor deny what he had forbidden.

“You like pain? You’re vampire, now. You can suffer so much pain and it will always heal. Clover gave you a gift. You have a tome. You have this place,” he said, gesturing to the hall around him. “Where you can come to be safe. You have been given so much and yet you take it all for granted, walk all over it. It’s disrespectful. Maybe think, before you run off to sulk,” he said, before turning to Clover. “Talk to your progeny, Clover. Sort your **** out. I’ll talk to you later,” he said, before he left them alone. He knew Clover hated it when he walked away – which was why he’d told her he’d talk to her later, and why he very obviously walked toward her apartment. Not leaving. Just… distancing himself. For now.


<Raven Talius> There it was, the two united on one front and she closed her eyes as a slow exhale soon followed. This was the very reason why she had stayed away because in the end Clover wouldn’t believe a word she said. Raven doubted that there would be anything that she could say that would change Clover’s mind, unless Jesse told her the truth. The truth where Jesse had told Raven that Clover wouldn’t fulfill her promise. It might as well have been forbidden, especially the way he had threatened her before he had told her that Clover wouldn’t fulfill such a thing. “No Jesse is just the giver, the one who can take everything away.” She said softly as she looked back to Clover.

“I take it that he hasn’t told you then. As your lover, he should have told you. As the head of this bloodline that he likes to keep reminding me, he can do whatever he wants.” She scowled at the man’s back then her brown gaze watching him walk away before she looked back to Clover. “We had a conversation, one right after you took his eye. You want to know what he said? He said, that you wouldn’t fulfill your promise, the one that you made when I was turned. Why? Because what you and he have, is intimate.” A scoff rose to her lips then as she looked down at Clover, why didn’t Jesse tell her?

It interested her in a way that made her wonder why he wouldn’t tell Clover about their argument. Was it because it was true? The woman looked at her wound then, her left hand still covered the stump. It was pain that she no longer could enjoy, it had soured and everything had turned back to being grey. The woman saw betrayal at every turn and broken promises. It was why she had distanced herself from everything, now she was constantly fighting because no one could see why she didn’t want anything but pain. Pain was easier to understand and not at all disappointing. “Besides, I’m not sulking. I’m hunting a certain twin.”


<Clover> “Ignore what the **** he said,” she dismissed, waving a hand after him as if she were trying to draw Raven’s attention back to herself. He’d been rude, but he’d left the two alone to talk. His choice to walk away could have been seen as an admission of guilt, but Clover had already put her foot down and Jesse had explained himself well enough. It was up to her to talk to Raven and figure things out, likely starting with Raven’s first comment. If there was one thing that pissed her off, it was someone talking about her boyfriend. Clover had to bite her tongue, take a deep breath, and count backwards from five.

“He’s not going to take anything away, okay? I’m your sire. I take things away,” Clover corrected. “I took your arm. It was an accident! But I took your arm. That can be an example.”

<Clover> She bent down to collect the fallen blade and held onto the hilt with her left hand. She had no intentions of swinging, not again, but she didn’t want her prized blade sitting on the floor.

The rest of Raven’s words made little sense, or maybe they made perfect sense. The confusion itself irritated Clover, but the words and the meanings left her bordering on furious. She felt the kind of rage that came with an underlying clarity. She had to dig for the understanding, but it was there all along. Jesse was withholding things from her. That was the charge. “He would tell me, if he said something like that,” Clo spoke, her voice level. “You realize what you’re saying, don’t you? You’re telling me that he’s withholding things from me and that he tried to intimidate you. I’ve known him for a lot longer than I’ve known you, so you understand why I’m having trouble believing this,” she huffed. “And another thing. Don’t you tell me what he should be telling me. As a lover, as a sire, as a friend, he can tell me whatever the hell he wants or doesn’t want to.” Even as she said those words, she knew she didn’t mean them. He should have told her, if there were things to tell. And since they’d agreed on honesty--why was she doubting Jesse? She wasn’t. “It was a misunderstanding. You’re my childe. We can do whatever the hell I want, when it comes to hurting you.” She’d almost completely ignored the last statement, something blamed on her anger. “Do you want to talk about your hunt? I think we should stop talking about Jesse.”


<Raven Talius> She listened to the words that Clover spoke and her assumptions were correct, the woman wouldn’t believe her. Her own sire wouldn’t believe her and Raven almost walked. Raven was tired of being the bad vampire, the one not to be trusted and she didn’t blame them. She was the loner, the one that pushed everyone away and created problems. Perhaps it was time that she cut all ties, went off on her own for good. She was always opposed and she couldn’t expect her sire to believe her over her own lover. Silence reigned down over the woman as her brown eyes flickered over Clover’s face. What else was there to say? What should be said? Her mind told her that she should just walk, leave and never come back. However, the last shred of respect she had for her sire, told her that she should talk to the woman.

Instead, neither happened. She was tired of this constant circle and she had been alone in her human life for a reason. The last time she had trusted someone nearly got her killed and now she wanted to tear through half the city. A sigh caressed her lips as she looked away, her gaze being drawn towards the fadeportal. Clover had just admitted that she was having trouble believing her and at that statement, the last thing she wanted to do was talk about her brother. Especially with someone who Raven didn’t know if she could trust. Finally, after silence reigned over her, she shook her head. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. In fact, I think that I will take a leave of absence.”

In the end it was anger at herself that made her say such a thing. She had dropped by Limbo out of courtesy, in an attempt to integrate herself in the family. However, it was hard when she couldn’t trust a damn soul to trust her. It was then that she couldn’t care about what the family thought of her, of what they wanted of her. “I’m going radio silent for a while and maybe I’ll return.” With that she turned to walk away.


<Clover> Her words flew true, just like an arrow, and Clover witnessed the aftermath. She watched the nonverbal cues and took in the verbal ones. In the blink of an eye, Raven shut down. Clo knew the woman hadn’t been the most forthcoming, but to see the shutters, to witness the way Raven withdrew, left Clover speechless. What was she supposed to say, both as a sire and as a friend? Were they even friends? The questions multiplied and divided, gathering strength in numbers. She didn’t know where they stood then, or what she needed to say to turn Raven around.

“Fine.” The word was thrown out. At first, she didn’t know why she chose that reaction. Clover wiped the palm of her free hand along the side of her leggings, as if she were expecting her palm to be sweaty. Sometimes, she forgot that she didn’t need to worry about such things. “If you want to go, then go. Walk away. Because that’s easiest. I’ll be here waiting. Don’t make it a maybe. Come back. Don’t you dare leave me. I’ll find you and take off your legs,” she threatened, her eyes narrowed.

Her words were venomous, and they weren’t spoken with rage. It was a promise. Everyone left her. She’d learned to close her hands around them and hold on tight. If Raven ever thought of truly leaving, of getting a lengthy leave of absence, then the woman had another thing coming. As it was, Clover had let Jesse walk away, and she had to let Raven walk away. There were other things that could have been said, both before Raven’s shut down and after, but Clo had refrained. She dropped down into a chair, pulled out her phone, and began texting. That was her escape.