Circus Grounds

[XCandy and LunacyX]

She swept away the veil of softly curling crimson hair from her eyes, deft fingers folding it behind her ear without tangling the strands on the backs of her straight row of earrings. "'Thank you'?" she echoed, her eyes watching him with a mild curiosity that her tone matched.
But beneath the top layers of her voice, her gaze, underneath her very skin, there was a current of overall bitterness. But it was hard to tell, given who it was, why the feeling still lingered. She would have liked to think it was because of him; it would have made it easier on him. But in truth, Antha's anger was directed at herself. Silly, silly girl...she had thought, for a fleeting moment, that something had changed.
Nicholas would make fun of her when she found him. He would jest that she was busying herself in matters meant for adults, that she was letting her thoughts form a consistency typical of children. He would be lucky if she did not kill him.

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

She swept away the veil of softly curling crimson hair from her eyes, deft fingers folding it behind her ear without tangling the strands on the backs of her straight row of earrings. "'Thank you'?" she echoed, her eyes watching him with a mild curiosity that her tone matched.
But beneath the top layers of her voice, her gaze, underneath her very skin, there was a current of overall bitterness. But it was hard to tell, given who it was, why the feeling still lingered. She would have liked to think it was because of him; it would have made it easier on him. But in truth, Antha's anger was directed at herself. Silly, silly girl...she had thought, for a fleeting moment, that something had changed.
Nicholas would make fun of her when she found him. He would jest that she was busying herself in matters meant for adults, that she was letting her thoughts form a consistency typical of children. He would be lucky if she did not kill him.

"Yes," he said, frowning slightly, althought not with displeasure; more with concentration. It was difficult to pin-point what exactly he was thanking her for when there were so many reasons for that.
'Thank you' for caring, for the expression on her face when he had let her enter his memories. For the concern that led her to seek out again the owners of this theatric carnival. 'Thank you' for the moments without her, when she let him wander on his own instead of calling him to heel. 'Thank you' for the sanctuary of his own mind, for letting it remain as such.
But there wasn't much of a way for him to say any of this, so he let it lie, in that grey miasma of no-man's-land between them, unspoken.

"And..." the vampire sighed, and cast a rueful glance at the bruise on the back of her leg, as though it was his fault. "I'm sorry. To be such a nuisance."
Vikteren tended to speak in staccato phrases when approached by something he didn't know quite how to handle. This situation did not look to be an exception to the rule.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

For a moment, Antha stood stark still. The pressure welling up was enough to cause her some physical pain, but it was overlooked. Where she should have calmed herself down, her eyes went glassy, her fingers clutched the trunk of the tree so hard that blood appeared in the scrapes left behind, and when she turned to face him her cheeks were flushed with anger. "What in the hell would possess you that you would apologize to me?" she found herself nearly screaming, not even caring that she knew she shouldn't, that she would regret it, "What made you decide to call yourself a nuisance? You frustrate the hell out of me, Vikteren, because you're so damn apathetic and submissive and you make me think far too much about what the hell I'm doing. But that doesn't make you a nuisance and you've yet to do anything to inconvenience me! You helped me into Sleet's chambers, whether willfully or not, you left him alone when I asked you to, you're probably the only thing keeping him away from me for a good while, you worried about me when I helped Atticus and Singe in the ritual, and you came when I woke up terrified and screaming. You're keeping the company of the brat princess and you have the nerve to apologize to me?"
When she finally went silent, she felt better. Some of the tension slipped away and the color that anger had brought to her face drained out of her skin. She was left leaning against the tee trunk, letting it entirely support her, her arms hanging lifelessly at her sides, and she did regret it. Of all the things that she could have lost her temper with him for, an apology seemed entirely inappropriate.
"Just don't apologize unless you royally screw things up," she concluded, her voice gone soft and the emerald of her eyes unusually tranquil.

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

For a moment, Antha stood stark still. The pressure welling up was enough to cause her some physical pain, but it was overlooked. Where she should have calmed herself down, her eyes went glassy, her fingers clutched the trunk of the tree so hard that blood appeared in the scrapes left behind, and when she turned to face him her cheeks were flushed with anger. "What in the hell would possess you that you would apologize to me?" she found herself nearly screaming, not even caring that she knew she shouldn't, that she would regret it, "What made you decide to call yourself a nuisance? You frustrate the hell out of me, Vikteren, because you're so damn apathetic and submissive and you make me think far too much about what the hell I'm doing. But that doesn't make you a nuisance and you've yet to do anything to inconvenience me! You helped me into Sleet's chambers, whether willfully or not, you left him alone when I asked you to, you're probably the only thing keeping him away from me for a good while, you worried about me when I helped Atticus and Singe in the ritual, and you came when I woke up terrified and screaming. You're keeping the company of the brat princess and you have the nerve to apologize to me?"
When she finally went silent, she felt better. Some of the tension slipped away and the color that anger had brought to her face drained out of her skin. She was left leaning against the tee trunk, letting it entirely support her, her arms hanging lifelessly at her sides, and she did regret it. Of all the things that she could have lost her temper with him for, an apology seemed entirely inappropriate.
"Just don't apologize unless you royally screw things up," she concluded, her voice gone soft and the emerald of her eyes unusually tranquil.

Silence reigned for a moment, as Vikteren frowned slightly, and then said, with a hint of reproach in his voice, "I'm not apathetic."
He continued, working through the words as though they had come to him only an instant before, his voice dim, yet his words strangely loud in the quiet woods. "You don't like it when people behave as though they are beholden to you, do you? Perhaps because of what you are, because of your lineage and what you have been named. Because people have tried to use you for those things, haven't they. Was that why you created your children's court, Antha?"
The vampire looked up at Antha, then, at her smooth and pale profile in the dark, luminescent to his eyes. "Princess you may be, Designee of the Mayfair legacy, but you weren't always such. Do you ever wonder if people would love you half so much as they do if you were not? Had you been born a human, ordinary, your surname commonplace, would Khayman or Nicolai or David Talbot have grown to cherish you so dear as they do now?"
His words seemed strange and distant, as though he spoke to himself more than Antha. He had been with her so very briefly, yet he felt as though he'd known her for much longer. Yet he still could not fathom the workings of her mind. In some ways, she reminded him of his sire--predatorial, clever and powerful and with a hint of malice somewhere hidden beneath that young face. Always one step ahead of his entire court, and playing them for fools, for entertainment. In some ways, though, she was still very young. A girl above all else, seeking as all young creatures do for something to make their youth worthwhile. For most, it was love. But Antha already had that, or what passed for it in most lives.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

There was silence for a moment, Antha's head inclined forward so that her hair hid her from his gaze. Eventually, the cigarette in her fingers burned down to meet her skin where she held it, unnoticed until it fell to the ground and Antha turned again to face him.
For most people, the expression on Antha's face would mean she was going to strike him. And though she didn't, she wanted to. She wanted him to hurt, and she loathed herself that she had just recently worried over him, fretted over his injuries and what might have become of him. The emotions in her eyes were very plain to read---hatred, more than a regular person might be able to handle, and pain the likes of which many waste themselves over. Both equally abundant, both equally intense, leaving no room for logic in between.
The ragged breath she took as her body tensed to painful degrees would usually mean she was going to cry. Instead she screamed, turning to the trees and vanishing into their dense darkness. Within, she lost track of time and consciousness. When she sat crumpled on the muddy ground, beating her fists into the dirt, she didn't know when the tears had appeared on her cheeks or the scratches on her arms and legs and she didn't know what she had done that her fingertips were raw, blood seeping from under her nails. She just knew that she was crying, smearing blood and dirt on her face when she tried to wipe the tears away.
So what if he was right? So what if no one actually loved her, or even liked her? So what if she was nothing more than her title?
Leave. She worked hard to focus her mind and calm the chaos when she sent the thought to him, though it was to little avail. If you linger, if I ever have to see you again--- There was no punishment Antha's mind could conjure up that was gruesome enough to punish him with, so she left the sentence incomplete.

 

[Vikteren]

Flat space between them, the mental connection going strained and taut. Then that counts as 'royally screwing things up'? he wanted to ask, but he didn't. He shook his hair back from his face, emotionless, mask-like in the cold starry light, and stepped, barefoot, on the smouldering ember of Antha's abandoned cigarette. The pain was sharp and edged like a knife, and it grounded him, focused his mind on cloying pain, which was physical and easily comprehended.
And it didn't help at all.
He did not leave. And though he could trace the path in the dark, pick up the scent of her blood from the distance between them, he did not follow Antha.
"Can I say I'm sorry now?" he muttered to himself, leaning against the trunk of the tree.
He couldn't deny what he had seen in her eyes.
He couldn't deny what he had promised.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

The witch girl sat curled up on the ground for a long time, trying to find something that would hurt her enough to make what his words did to her less painful or something that she could hurt enough to get her anger out. But there was nothing short of setting the forest on fire and burning herself in it that would help.
What she couldn't understand was why he would say something like that to her. She didn't know if he realized it was true or not, but even had he not it would be cruel beyond words. And he was only here to 'repay me' to begin with, she reminded herself bitterly, crawling over to the nearest tree and sitting in the mess of tangled roots, At least the others care enough to pretend that they care. For a moment she flashed on the story Malakai had given her one Christmas, 'Winter Dreams'. Dexter had been happy that Judy lied to him about being with another man. He said that she cared enough to lie to him, and it made him happy. Was Antha any less pathetic than that?
She found herself screaming at Vikteren suddenly, though he was out of earshot, and in the back of her mind she wondered how fast she could set the trees up in flame around her.

 

[Vikteren]

He wasn't.
Not by a long shot. His senses were capable of picking up a heartbeat, the bass pound of blood through veins. The vampire could not possibly have missed her scream.
Instinctively he knew the throat it came from, moving before he could command himself to do so. He did not stop to wonder if Antha even wanted to see him. He did not think of her words, Leave, If you linger, if I ever have to see you again, none of that. He heard the scream, and monster that he was, he responded, as a moth might be drawn to an open flame.
And he was not released from that instinct until she was in his sights, whole and unharmed, and he could flinch back from that expression, put one hand over his traitorous, malicious mouth.
He went to her slowly, picking his way over discarded leaves and limbs, and said, with words that were not quite real because he did not trust his lips to leave the words untainted, I did not mean that, Antha.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

At some point, complete insanity had released it's hold upon Antha and she sat quietly now, her legs pulled up to her chest with her head cradled between her knees and her arms wrapped around herself. "Of course you did." The tone of her voice, the complete bleakness of it, gave the impression that there was nothing beneath the surface of her skin. Hollow, empty, emotionless...she herself could have sworn someone else had spoken.
And it didn't matter, for the moment, that she didn't want to ever set eyes upon him again in her life. It didn't matter that she might have liked to claw his eyes out. She just didn't care enough.
"I don't even care if you knew the truth of your words. I don't even care how perfectly cruel it was, how heartless. But if you didn't mean it, you wouldn't say it." She did not think to look up at him, and perhaps she did not want to, but she did and her eyes were red and the tears were coming again, unnoticed. "I can't help it that no one loves me," she said very simply, almost childishly, "I can't change who I am. I can't change my name or my family or what I am. I can't make people care about more than what I was forced to be. But I can ignore it and I can pretend. At least until someone decides they loathe me enough that they want me to recognize the facts of the matter." Until you came along. She rested her forehead back against her knees, letting her hair fall around her, shield her.

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

At some point, complete insanity had released it's hold upon Antha and she sat quietly now, her legs pulled up to her chest with her head cradled between her knees and her arms wrapped around herself. "Of course you did." The tone of her voice, the complete bleakness of it, gave the impression that there was nothing beneath the surface of her skin. Hollow, empty, emotionless...she herself could have sworn someone else had spoken.
And it didn't matter, for the moment, that she didn't want to ever set eyes upon him again in her life. It didn't matter that she might have liked to claw his eyes out. She just didn't care enough.
"I don't even care if you knew the truth of your words. I don't even care how perfectly cruel it was, how heartless. But if you didn't mean it, you wouldn't say it." She did not think to look up at him, and perhaps she did not want to, but she did and her eyes were red and the tears were coming again, unnoticed. "I can't help it that no one loves me," she said very simply, almost childishly, "I can't change who I am. I can't change my name or my family or what I am. I can't make people care about more than what I was forced to be. But I can ignore it and I can pretend. At least until someone decides they loathe me enough that they want me to recognize the facts of the matter." Until you came along. She rested her forehead back against her knees, letting her hair fall around her, shield her.

It doesn't matter what your family name is, Antha, he said impatiently, and he went to her, again without thinking, and knelt at her side. Some small and withered survival instinct in the nether realms of his subconscious was shrieking bloody murder, but he either didn't hear it or ignored it. It does not matter if you are witch or kindred or human or--or Talamascan pawn-- He swore when he saw the glitter of light on her cheeks, tears, and his hands reached for her, stopped a hair's-width before they touched her, and he asked, Please, look at me. Antha, I am sorry. I apologize. It was cruel of me to say what I did, for I believe those things to be untrue but did not know whether you did.  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

"Does that make it any less cruel?" she asked calmly, pulling herself more tightly together, as if she might vanish into herself, "Because they are true. David doesn't love me; I intrigue him, excite him, but he would not care if I were not Designee of the Legacy. Nicolae does not love me; he is bound to me by blood. Khayman does not love me; he owes me a debt and his ties to me prove that he is in favor of change." The moment the word 'debt' fell from her lips, her body tensed and her nails dug into her legs, leaving little half-moon compressions in her skin.
Only the physical pain allowed her to raise her head, to meet his gaze. "Silly little girl, hmm?" She laughed, a brittle sound, and it was at herself. "Maybe for some reason I deluded myself into believing that someone cared for other reasons for once, no matter how little he cared." Her lips stretched into a fragile smile, but she was not smiling---it did not touch her eyes. "But you don't, do you?"

 

[Vikteren]

+Rotting Lunacy+

"Does that make it any less cruel?" she asked calmly, pulling herself more tightly together, as if she might vanish into herself, "Because they are true. David doesn't love me; I intrigue him, excite him, but he would not care if I were not Designee of the Legacy. Nicolae does not love me; he is bound to me by blood. Khayman does not love me; he owes me a debt and his ties to me prove that he is in favor of change." The moment the word 'debt' fell from her lips, her body tensed and her nails dug into her legs, leaving little half-moon compressions in her skin.
Only the physical pain allowed her to raise her head, to meet his gaze. "Silly little girl, hmm?" She laughed, a brittle sound, and it was at herself. "Maybe for some reason I deluded myself into believing that someone cared for other reasons for once, no matter how little he cared." Her lips stretched into a fragile smile, but she was not smiling---it did not touch her eyes. "But you don't, do you?"

He flinched back, the expression--something yearning-- in his eyes trying to back away into a shadowed corner, to make itself unseen, and then he stopped, struck by a thought.
No. I won't let my pride control me.
He touched his fingers to her cheeks, the tip of his finger gliding along her skin, gathering her tears.
"I care," he said quietly, and felt his cold, pale skin unexpectedly flush scarlet, blood rising to his cheeks, and felt himself stumble like a schoolboy over the next few words. "Even if--even if I owed you no debt--even if you were 'ordinary', I think--I would still try to find a way to remain at your side."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

The only response she gave was a hollow little laugh, something not even quite human, and gave a vague shake of her head. "Liar," she accused him flatly, resting her cheek against her knees.
But he had tried. Cared enough to try, right? Perhaps it would have counted for something if she could have pretended to believe it. But all it was worth now was assuring that she wouldn't kill him, or at least not hurt him enough to express her anger, which was normal. After nineteen years of letting fake assurances of love and friendship be accepted as true, it calmed her, if only slightly.

 

[Vikteren]

His heart clenched, like chains had suddenly been jerked tight around it, and his hands stilled and then withdrew from her.

"I'm not lying." he said quietly.
Suddenly, anger flaring, he said sharply, "Look at me, Antha. Do you think that, if I could not stand your presence, no matter your status, your power, if I found you--boring, or irritating, or shallow, not even worthy of my contempt, that any debt you could call upon me would keep me at your side? If I did not want to be here, I would have sought a way to leave your side the night that you dragged me out of the catacombs. If I did not care for you--I would already be gone. I promised that I would leave you only--only when you demanded, in your own words, that I do so. You made that demand tonight."
The anger faded from his voice, left it a subtle whisper.
"I am still here."  

[XCandy and LunacyX]

She bothered to look up at him but merely scoffed, keeping with her doubt, which had been strengthened by his show of anger. "You do not have to hate me to not care for me, Vikteren." His retreat left her feeling a touch cold, though she did not understand why. "Though you raise a good point---you are here. I don't know why, but you've proved your point. You don't hate me. I won't dispute that." And so I still don't know why you said such things. And she still had no idea why he hadn't just left. She saw no benefit in it for him.