Truth be told

He descended from the sky, lost to heaven, and a stranger to hell. He came to me in dreams so bright and wonderful that even now when I think of them, I weep.

I can still see those wings, each perfect feather marred only by the blurring of tears, an alchemy of joy and sadness which has no equal. When I first set eyes on his form, I wanted to drive my eyes from my head. Only some part of his majesty held me from doing so, some part of my brain that knew that flawless and fell vision was already inside.

Eyes or no, I would have that image buried in my mind for as long as I endure.

He touched the ground soundless and gently as any serene windbourne leaf. He wore at his left hip a blade I can only describe as magnificent, and as he alighted on the rocky ground, titanic spikes of irridescent blue crystal erupted from the ground at irregular and unnatural angles.

His face was a mask of the most peaceful and benevolent expression, and his flawless marble skin was not broken by a single line of scar, in spite of the countless battles he had fought in the name of his maker.

When he spoke, it was as if my heart were going to rupture, I could not bear those tones. What he whispered was spoken soft and sweet, yet was heard as a clarion call.

"Each day we draw breath, there is no Divine plan. It is only in death that we know our true purpose. Only when our beginnings are ended may we transcend to true greatness."

It was then that I became free; then that I was liberated from morality, predestination, cause, effect, reason, or accountability.

-MC-

They arrived under cover of darkness, five men and one woman; smashing in the door to the his house, and butchering his entire family in just a few short moments.

They killed the family as a warning to other representatives of the law, or so their note said.

Hulreathe came home to find his door splintered and the hinges torn. His eyes went first to the bloody bootprints that led out of the entryway, then to the remains of his wife and family. He stood paralyzed with horror in the center of the living room, surrounded by pools of gore that were once his whole life.

After a time, feeling returned to him, and his numb fingers began to burn and clench with the heat of wrath.

In the full grip of rage, he took everything of value, burning all else right then and there. As the last vestiges of his life curled toward the sky as smoke, he traveled to the tower of Maerissa. Once there, he turned all he posessed over to the wizards who resided there, if they would craft him a blade worthy of exacting his revenge.

The wizards indulged him after one of them went mad trying to read his mind. They crafted that day the last of the Graedess blades. They quenched the blade in dragon's blood, and naming it Wrath, they reluctantly gave the sword to its man.

With that, Hulreathe and wrath set upon the trail of the murderers. He had no more ties, nothing more to lose, his wife and children were nothing more than ashes now. He forced the pictures of his gore-streaked house from his mind, and focused on the task at hand.

He found their trail in the bazaar at Na'zaa, and from there, he laid waste to anyone who harbored or assisted them. Hulreathe went from lead to lead, killing or maiming until someone... anyone had information about his quarry.

Eventually the luck of those sent to kill his family ran out; out of friends, supplies, and places to hide, the final stage of the chase was on. But what he did not know, was that his enemies numbered much more than just six.

Hulreathe chased them down, and in their own camp he slew three before they broke and ran... so wrapped in the burning hatred of his blade was he, that they escaped as he hacked at their dead forms. After regaining what he thought was control over the blade, on he went. He rode for days on end, finally reaching the northern kingdom of Colear after riding several horses into the ground.

He finally found them on the southern plains, and it was there that he learned the depth of his betrayal at the hands of his lord... It did not matter, for his heart had already ceased beating, his mind long since shattered by Wrath. All that this knowledge brought was a further strengthening of his will; He knew he would die this day, but he would make those bastards pay. He walked down into the grassy valley that was their encampment, and there the killing began.

He clove his way through their ranks, in rage unchained he was a terror to behold. Hulreathe's skill was great, but he was no legend.... Nay, it was Wrath that carried him that day. His wrath knew no pain of body or of spirit. He shrugged off hits that would have felled a horse as if it were the merest sting of a mosquito. Yet to one such as he there are limitations, only so much blood can be lost before the muscles begin to slow. The armor can only take so much punishment before it begins to crack. The wounds began to mount as more of his blood mixed with that of his quarry on the gore-streaked valley floor.

His enemies were falling before his unstoppable onslaught, yet it looked as if they would surely win the day; and then, a mighty blow slipped past his defenses, slamming him to his knees.

He waited for the killing blow even though he still clutched his sword. As the blade fell his sword rose to meet it. His enemies weapon could not handle the impact and shattered. Up Hulreathe rose, though his eyes were glazed, and movements slow. A hiss issued from between his clenched teeth, his death rattle, perhaps.

He staggered forward and the killing began anew. Like a wrathful God, his sword slammed through steel and flesh, each swing ending another life, each parry rending another blade. Each man he clove gave him new strength, and as he killed, he sold his life dearly. He gained speed with each stroke as he reaped the bloody wheat, stepping on, in, and over the half-dead and dying to reach those still living and uninjured.

Legend holds that a Graedess blade cannot fail its master, yet this time I believe the blade would not let its man fail it. For the blade itself was the true master, created for the revenge he so desperately deserved.

Hulreathe carried on in his wrath, he and his blade slew the rest of the enemy host that day. The living embodiment of vengeance, he chased down and slew all that tried to make escape or stand ground... including the lord who had betrayed him.

As his lord's head rolled to a stop his sister in law, Shallu, ran down to hold him; he was ghastly pale and looked right through her yet he knew she was there. He uttered to her a poem of which I still remember each word. Then despite her considerable skill in both medicine and magic, his spirit would not stay in his body.

From this existence he passed, into the grace of the realm of the departed. She wept for him, and for her sister, and their lost children. Then she carried out his wish and burnt his body, but she did not finish his instructions, and his soul was left to wander; trapped between life and death, a shattered soul existing only to feed from the wrath of the blade.

Of his enemies... Shallu left them for the crows, and his wrath she left there, for she went to touch it and it would not have her. It pressed thorns through the soft flesh of her hand, andshowed her horrible images of the things Hulreathe had seen and done.

This is his song, so that it might no longer go unsung.

Beneath the stone I breathe so slow
I'll say a prayer to all held dear
Even now, with not far to go
The time of my return draws near

The years pass by, just like my dreams
I've slipped to depths you cannot know
Tiny currents in dark streams
And now it's time to start the show

Time to retake what was lost
at the hands of a host so fell
It's time I show them all the cost
It's time to send them back to hell

Dirge for the fallen, wrathful and brave
Carry me safely on shield, to my grave
Bury my body, that my soul might rest
And set with the dying sun to the west.

The night will bring the Shadow-call
The ancient rises in his wrath
A hero backed against a wall
and forced to walk this bitter path

An enemy that will not yield
For the fallen blood, and flesh of elf
In wrath, his blade will clear the field
the truest test is to deny the self

Though he will fail by arcane art
By shield and blade he'll bring
The hope of dawn into his heart
And peace, of which the bards will sing

Sing for those who believed the lies
Burn my bones, let them char the skies
Release me from this pain, and my beast
to join with the rising sun to the east.


Hulreathe's last words issued from trembling lips, stained crimson from the blood of his foes. Singing his own dirge, his instructions to her on how to prepare his body for the afterlife, he began to come apart. His body simply failed him, the blade had finally let him go.

It would be decades before the blade would find its way into the hands of a boy named Marcidius, and longer still until Hulreathe and I were made one. To this day, only four have ever wielded the blade: Myself, Marcidius, Hulreathe, and Laros Sonus.

It will only accept those who have lost their true family, and have offered to the blade in sacrifice their heart's desire.

-MC-

When Valentine had recovered sufficiently to regain consciousness, he immediately realized several things at once: He had few supplies, little equipment, he was alone, his wounds had healed, and his sight had mended. He sat up and looked about him, instinctually searching for some familiar landmark to orient himself by other than a useless midday sun.

Valentine rested up for a bit, took stock of what he had with him, and gave the sun some time to pick a direction. Not far into his search through his equipment, he found a leather bag that he didn’t recognize, tied in among his many belts and pouches.

He pulled open the drawstring to the bag, and tried to shake out the contents into his other hand. Nothing fell from the bag, so he laced it back into his belt and thought nothing more of it. Continuing his search of his possessions; Valentine found he had enough food to last three days, and enough water for two.

The sun slowly resumed its routine trek down into the west, and once Valentine had prepared himself and his gear for a long walk, he set off into the desert.

The months that followed blured into a walking daymare of blistering heat, endless sands, the constant gnaw of hunger, and an unbearable thirst. Several times during this journey, Valentine collapsed from exhaustion, each time wearily rising again after resting too little.

He reached the heart of the desert completely delerious with thirst and nearly crippled with hunger pains. He stumbled into the grass, falling to his knees near the edge of a small, clear pool. Valentine looked about in disbelief at the small oasis that lay before him.

He drank greedily from the spring and was punished by his body almost immediately. He began to heave up most of the water he had ingested, but managed to keep some down. Crawling into the shade of a large rock face, he waited for his siezing stomach muscles to relax.

After recovering sufficiently to crawl back to the pool, he gathered a small amount of water into his cupped hands and, very cautiosly at first, drank of it. He wet his hands and his face, noticing with his fingertips as he did so that much of the skin was cracked and peeling from sunburn.

Valentine gathered his courage, and using the pool’s reflective surface, examined his sun-ruined features. His face was a deep red, accented by the white of peeling sunburned skin.
His cheeks seemed much more hollow, and his eyes were sunken deep into their sockets.

He found a sort of gallows humor in this, seeing his wrecked, emaciated form…. But instead of a throaty laugh, all that emerged was a dusty croak.

“Have I suffered so little that there are still tortures left for you to inflict on me, my love?” he asked of the horizon, not really expecting an answer. He lowered his head then, and as his gaze swept downward, he saw that near where he had collapsed in the shade was an opening in the rock face.

He took a few more swallows of water, and crawled back into the shade and collapsed. “You’d better get up,” He said aloud to himself, “or whatever lives in that cave is going to kill and eat you.” Nearly an hour later, still lying curled in te shade of the rock face, he had the same thought again. “No…No, I’m pretty sure it would have killed me by now.” He mused, drawing his cloak into a bundle and resting his head on it.

-MC-

All would have ended in ruin, as it had done so many times before, if not for Sangua. The Lady of Blood plucked a feather from each of Fyndrael’s wings, and he turned, as if to rebuke her. But he seemed struck dumb by her actions, and said nothing for a long time after she spoke.

Sangua touched the stones of the cairn, and one by one, they were claimed by the Void.
Slowly, the broken and bloody body of Brother Valentine was revealed. When she was done with this, she stood,

To Fyndrael she said: “I have taken from you Pain and Suffering, for they are as feathers of your wings, Death. I shall take him from you, and together, he and I both shall pay your price of souls.” With that, she stuck Valentine in each eye with the feathers, drawing their smoldering tips down his cheeks, melting twin grooves into the flesh of his face.

She pulled the feathers free from his skin, and knelt beside his head, placing one feather in each of his hands, curling his fingers about their shafts. They no longer burned with Fyndrael’s fire, having been cooled in the act of drawing those lines.

Sangua arose and spoke once more. “I am of Blood, of Life… You, Fyndrael, are of Fire, of Death. You have no power over him, nor do you now own claim to the souls of his lineage. You have no power, yet it is only fair that you should be paid. He shall arise again, our Weeping Saint… Finding, as your payment; salvation through suffering, bliss through bloodletting, triumph through tears, and peace through pain. You shall have yourself a feast with this one, while he lives… but in the end, he shall be one with his true love. The Lady Horizon. What I myself offer as payment, shall pass only between the two of us.”

Fyndrael realized there was naught he could do to prevent this, she had invoked the powers of all living blood to bend him to her will. He realized also that his payment would be more power than this one line of DuClermont could ever provide him in a hundred generations. With the smallest of nods to Sangua, he showed his begrudging consent.

Sangua walked to Valentine, kneeling once more beside him, and pressed a bloody kiss to his forehead. Some say that though they were already leagues away, several of the priests that served Meelyeoh went mad at the sound Valentine made as his soul was returned to his body… at once the most pathetic, pained, and horrifying sound ever made by a mortal voice. Those angels that were present said it was worse by far than even Fyndrael’s victorious laughter.

Blood streamed from his ruined face and eyes, and he sobbed the true name of his beloved aloud as he gathered himself to his knees. Sangua called Horizon to the mortal plane, summoning her from the Far Shore with her power. Horizon looked upon the broken form of her love with unmasked horror, and Sangua took her in arm, comforting her cousin as best she could.

Horizon called to Valentine, using the link they shared as Goddess and Priest. “My love, my bloody Valentine, I know you cannot see me… but I am here. I am oathbound not to interfere directly in the affairs of your life. My father Taisondymere has forbidden it, and he is known to your people as Fatekeeper. My cousin is here, and she has crafted what comfort she can for the both of us. I cannot stay by your side, but I will be with you always.”

Sangua touched the mark of her lips still present on Valentine’s forehead, and he was instilled with a feeling of profound peace. “I have never given so much for a mortal, but I see in your blood that you love my cousin. It is for both of you that I do this, in the hope that I may find such purity of love by granting it to another.”

“I will see that it is so, Sangua.” said Taisondymere, who had arrived unnoticed my the Goddesses. He looked to Horizon with a serious expression on his face. “But for the time being, you are dangerously close to breaking our Oath, Daughter.” Sangua bowed in proper deference to Taisondymere, and then wiped the trailing tears from the face of her cousin. “It was I who summoned her, Uncle. From my great need came her presence here.” Sangua replied.

Taisondymere looked from his niece to his daughter, and then at the broken Alaran kneeling nearby. A look of pity spread across his normally impassive face, and he looked to his daughter once more. “I will hold to the pact that Sangua has made with Fyndrael, do not worry on that… Sangua, please attend to the boy, we must depart now.”

With that, Sangua was left to tend to Valentine by herself.

-MC-

My skin tightened, and every hair stood on end. It will end soon. The
atrocities she has committed will be repaid by her blood.

We waded through her swamps, which reeked of death, spewing its sickly
green flame in brief spurts. Many of us died crossing that border into her
lands, but even after those losses, we remained several thousand strong.

My thoughts wandered as we marched, across trackless waste, through
twisted forests, and over a shattered desert plain.

Lightning crashed from obscure heavens to distant horizon all about us.
Many of us were scared; but by remembering the task at hand, we forced
bravery into our hearts, and the trembling from our hands.

As we crossed the plain, we walked through an endless
and hazy dream, ever toward the nightmare which was our objective.
I have had dreams within dreams within dreams since those
terrible days.

The shattered ground cracked further beneath our clamorous footfalls.
There were some who hissed warnings to others to be quiet, but the
time for that had long since passed. Being silent could no more
protect us than the castles she laid siege to had….

She knew full well of our approach.

Her serpentine minions espied us in her bog, and the spiders in their thick
webs marked our passage through her dark forest. Only here, on a plain
so completely devoid of life, was she unable to observe our progress.

Only here, on this flat plain of bleached bone and scorched earth were
we safe from her prying eyes. Our lives were safe where death held
court.

The irony was not lost on me.

As we continued to march, the tallest spires of the crystalline towers
pierced the threshold of the horizon. As we advanced, the towers
loomed taller and more ominous, thrusting ever higher into the
churning skies.

We broke camp in a small canyon, thinking it luck to find such a place
here in this featureless plain plagued by constant storm. Huddled in the
light and warmth of our cooking fires, many of us chewed on what we
knew would likely be our last meal while vacantly staring at the flames.


We were fools to take shelter there, and we paid dearly for our folly.
On this plain, only the dead rest beneath the ground, and we had no
idea that we had walked into the gravesite she had prepared especially
for us.

The swollen stormclouds overhead loosed an unending deluge upon us
in that sunken place, and the flood that followed soon after drove us
out into the open.

Her armies lay in wait just outside the canyon, and they cut us down
as we fled. We were prepared to fight men, not nightmares.

Much of her army wore only tattered scraps of rotten clothing over
their desiccated and decaying bodies, but it was enough to identify
them as Alaran.

They were our fathers, our mothers, our brothers and sisters, neighbors,
and clansmen… They were our wives and our husbands, and they were
denied the eternal peace of the afterlife because of Delnatha

She was using our own dead against us.

The dead of the plains had been risen from their long slumber at
her command, hungry for our flesh, full of hatred for the life we
still possessed.

I remember very little of the desperate battle, save that in the end, we
somehow managed victory. The cost was steep, however; for each of
her undead, we easily lost ten of our own number.

We were not warriors, we were simply those who had been pushed too
far by her tyranny. Over half of our original number had been slain,
and we could not perform the sacred rites of passage to transition their
souls to the endless dream.

Those who were able-bodied enough to continue burned the bodies of
the slain so that they could not come back as a soldier in her army of
the damned.

Those that still had any hope for vengeance left in them wept for the
dead as we gathered ourselves, and prepared to march the remaining
distance to her keep.

I do not know what became of those we left behind; the ones who had
lost or seen too much to continue, the ones who sat with blank stares,
and empty souls, unable even to grieve.

All I know is this: I never saw them again.

As we approached, the glistening crystal spires of Delnatha cathedral
reflected and amplified the light of the chaotic skies. Soon, we were
so close to her stronghold that the walls of the outer keep obscured
our view of even the highest of the glimmering towers.

After so long… we few who remained had made it, and the
realization that the sacrifices of our loved ones would not be in vain
struck me almost as a physical blow.

As a group, we stopped. There was no signal given to do so, but
I believe the others felt similarly. She would pay for her crimes
with her heart’s blood.

Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes, and I clutched my axe
tightly as I resumed my forward march. The others took this cue
and began to follow after me.

Her gates stood open… Giant iron doors shrieking ominously
on their hinges, buffeted back and forth by the fierce winds of
the storm that perpetually writhed in the skies above.

It was then that the screaming began…. At first, I thought I was
hearing the doors squeal, but I would soon realize we were not
so fortunate.

The dark, twisted, fruitless trees of the inner courtyard thrashed
violently in the blustering wind. They lined either side of a path
leading directly to a great marble stairway; but as we drew near
they uprooted themselves, barring our path.

I felt a low growl rise from deep in my throat, which turned
quickly to a piercing shriek which mirrored that of the trees
as I charged toward those abominations.

The trees in my homeland were our allies, but Delnatha had
powers over the dead and dying, and these certainly met that
description.

Several times, instead of the dull sound of a solid
axe-chop on wood, I heard the hollow ringing of metal
that indicated these trees were dead inside.


When we at last set foot on the veined marble stair, those who
had made it through were slicked with blood and sap. I myself
bore hundreds of thorn cuts; deep gashes inflicted by the grasping
brambles of trees animated by her dark arcana, cracked ribs from the
sweeping branches of her grove of screeching guardians.

There were more stairs than my simple reckoning could possibly
explain, each perfectly cut square, and each with a rise perfectly
equal to its tread. We climbed on and on, until our hearts pumped
acid through our veins, and our muscles burned with fatigue.

The stairway wound its way around, and threaded itself through
the archways and tunnels cut into the crystal spikes of her lair.
It seemed as if the climb would never end, that we would collapse
long before reaching our objective.

I remember hearing her laughter as we climbed ever onward.
I swore to myself that my laughter would be the last sound she
ever heard.

I could not possibly have known then what fate had in store for me.

-MC-

Three sisters; Immortal born, identical born.

The miracles of the Weeping Saint and his love of Horizon.

Of Drui, eldest of Cryna, and the sacrifice his children have made for our people.
As well, the binding of Flickerscale, the flame serpent of Delnatha.

It is my most sincere hope that these tales of which I write to you shall be the litany and legacy that binds them to mortal remembrance forever.

Kyiera Defiant. The Drownder.
Her ambition's thirst slaked only when she had held her love beneath the tide, thus gaining power over the sea. As she watched the bubbles of his last breath foam about her forearms, she ascended to Godhood. Her sister Odessa told their father of this, earning Odessa of the Shore the eternal enmity of the Seas.

Odessa Defiant. The Betrayer.
Her own twin image, her own sister. All that stood in her way was Nildania, and Odessa of the Shore ached to trump her sister Kyiera. She murdered Nildania, ending her reign as Goddess of Sky, and sending her to the Realm of the Departed. Now Goddess of Sky, she gloated to her sister Kyiera that she would always be above her in the order of the world.

The world’s seas frothed with Kyiera’s wrath at this change, and she earned anew her title, the Drownder… and in the Realm of the Departed, Nildania awaited a miracle, and wept.

Nildania Defiant. The Martyred.
The true and rightful Goddess of Sky. Seeing her sorrow over her sisters’ actions, Meelyeoh comforted her tears away. While he could not interfere, he prophesied that after seven centuries had past, the time of her return would be at hand.

With the rift of hatred between Sea and Sky growing in power, a Godling was born. The acts of the Drownder and Betrayer went not unnoticed by fate. So it is that Horizon was born, to stand between the sisters, lest their evil spill over from their domain into that of another God.

Years passed, and an Alaran boy, the seventh seventh son of a seventh son, was heralded by the prophecies of Priestess Delnatha.

She told of how the boy would be visited by Horizon, of how she would claim him, and take from their lovemaking a child of her own. She did not speak at all of his age, but knew that when this happened he would be only fifteen years old.

In a few decades, the prophecy came to pass into truth, and there was indeed a child born from the union of the boy Valentine and Horizon. Growing to adulthood instantly; the Godling named itself Duality, and leaving the Far Shore, went into the realm of mortals.

At the age of thirty, Valentine took the name of his family, becoming Brother Valentine DuClermont. In the service of his love, the Lady Horizon, he came to know great pain.

Valentine was of a bloodline related to angels, and Fyndrael had claimed them as his own. He came to harvest the soul of Valentine as he had done to the other members of the DuClermont line.

The Crimson Martyr Sacrifice was the ritual which had cursed the family for generations reaching back as far as recorded history. The male members of the family would perform the ritual, each to their ruin. It was believed among the family that when the Sacrifice was completed without the taint of death, that the souls of the family would be released from Fyndrael’s power, and be admitted to the Far Shore.

Valentine Performed the ritual, surrounded by angels and his fellow faithful, offering his soul to Fyndrael in exchange for his blessing of blood. There were tears in the eyes of the faithful as they raised their blades, preparing to strike Valentine as the ritual demanded.

They knew it was a great sacrifice, to murder one so dear to them in exchange for the means to power, but they abided the wishes of brother Valentine, and butchered him.

They had no choice… The undead armies of Delnatha threatened to overrun the northlands of Valana. They were priests and farmers, not soldiers, but they vowed that they would make her pay with the blood of a martyred Saint coating their blades.

Seven blades struck his flesh in unison, and deep crimson blossomed in seven places, soaking his white robes in his own lifeblood. Fyndrael laughed with a sound like a chill breeze across tombstones, and even angels wept for the heartlessness of it.

The assemblage of mortals left, having finished the ritual, leaving to take up their makeshift weapons against Delnatha. They erected a cairn as his grave, burying his body beneath the stones, planning to return after their confrontation with the Prophetess… But they would never return to claim his remains. Only one survived that encounter intact, and I will not do his memory the disservice of telling his tale in my own words.

I shall lay down the first part of his acount as he told it so often afterward.

-MC-

I am floating through darkness, one with it... slipping between it.

Ever downward I sink, ever toward my prey, filtering through the black toward my quarry.

I emerge from the shadows on the ceiling, holding myself just below the shadow with my fingertips alone. My sense of smell is sharp tonight, and I can tell she is here, her blood smells divine.

I drop without a sound to the floor, and begin to walk down a short hallway. As I walk past a beige fainting couch with a mirror hanging on the wall behind it, I smirk.

“You know better than to look, but still, you always do.”, I chide myself.

Seeing that I still have no reflection, I return to the hunt. The first one I kill in the hallway barely even has the effect of whetting my appetite, sad that so much blood is necessary for one so young.

So much blood.

A brief moment later, I step refreshed through a thin mist of crimson, and into a large ballroom.

A large black piano sits in the far corner of the room, and sitting atop it, legs crossed , is my prey. I reach out with all of my senses and commit every minute detail to memory. Her scent is like that of fresh rain and burning leaves, and lurking beneath that is an even stronger undercurrent.

The scent of her blood.

My eyes freze, savoring each image, committing them to memory as my ears record the sound of her heart beating in her chest. There is a ball going on all around us, I notice when I am finally able to pry my senses from her.

I close my eyes and close the distance.

So many people.

Many of them are staring at me as I walk to the piano, the tact of some masked faces disguising it better than others.

Her friends scatter at my approach, and I lock eyes with her.

She slides off of the piano, looking directly into my eyes, and asks: “One who follows?”. I nod in response, as I slide my hands over her shoulders. My fingertips slide across her neck, the tips of my pointed nails scoring a thin line of crimson in their wake.

The scent of her blood in the open air awakens a hunger within that has no comparison, it quite simply defies explanation or description.

“I’ve been expecting you.” She says to me as she pulls her hair back, quickly tying it into a ponytail “Don’t disappoint me.” She teases.

Such a willing victim.

The point of my canine drives its way through the flesh of my bottom lip, releasing a small stream of warm blood down my chin.

She throws her arms around my neck and begins to lick the blood from my face, her lapping turning to bloody kisses as her grip around me tightens. She pulls herself closer, and whispers into my ear: “Most precious blood, devour me.”

My nails dig furrows into her arching back, and her first moans of pleasure coincide with my fangs sliding into her flesh. Her heartbeat is fluttering, and she wraps her legs around me, tearing at my clothing and pulling me down to the floor. Lying on the floor in shredded clothes, she pulls me inside her as I drain her of blood; she bucks and thrashes, but eventually her heartbeat slowly begins to weaken.

I can feel the muscles of her entire body rhythmically tensing and releasing as she comes again and again. Her heartbeat continues to slow and weaken, but she doesn’t stop thrashing or trying to tear me apart.

I feel her teeth sink into me, my blood welling from the deep punctures and into her eager mouth. She rolls over so that she is on top of me, and removes the mask that she was wearing, revealing the face behind it.

As she reaches the peak of her final orgasm, she sucks my blood from her fingertips... and her heart no longer beats.

Just like me.

-MC-