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Trist Ahn Nefaritus (Rough)
((Let me know if any details need changing. In some places I edited things because these spots were either empty or the recollections elduded me, so please let me know so I can fix them. Paticularly Jinx, for there is so much I may have mistken in interpretation.h Well, here it is....))
There stood on the prominent edge of the lower gardens a silhouette of deep shadow that could not be highlighted by means of the red tinted moon above, and it sighed with resignation, its great shoulders sagging briefly before retaining their former pose of stagnant erection. Its eyes, of ice blue and flecks of silver, ever changing pools of depth and mystery, they were hunter’s eyes, cold, reflective, mirror-like. They scanned the landscape that fell away from it on the mountainside, the trees cascading down the rippled slopes, the jagged cliffs behind their protective cloak of blackened green just another reminder to it what dangers lay outside, waiting for it, haunting it, that precipice of knowledge as dangerous as the representation the sheer drop off posed to him.
Everything it had known was that abyss of darkness laying beyond the solid ground of reality, that could be lit to its core by the light of day, when it was dwelling in the core of the earth and would not look upon it. Oh horrid agony, that it should not know what haunted it until the sun came up, and when it slumbered, these things would ever be present in the dark recesses of its nocturnal mind. The night around it gave another gentle sigh in return as the creature of heightened stature turned its back on the silver red disc ascending the sky, the light breeze rustling through the willow standing a silent and solemn guard over that reticent body that stalked its shadow, the garden shadows, every shadow of the earth it could fall away in and become evanescent from the sight of those who hunted it, those who would have it bow before them as a brutal and savage creature. That creature which it possibly and very truly was, to bow before their race and bend to their wills, to give them what only men could want; escape is what they seeked, from their own follies.
The creature, powerful and lean and infallible, perfected by the age of wisdom and strength, stalked from the willow and the worshiping flowers that surrounded its trunk, sauntered back towards the alcove entrance to its lair, the hair on the back of its neck laying flat again as it left the whispers of fate that the evening spoke to it through the many voices of the living in the world, speaking through their souls to its trained ears. It would prepare, ready itself for the hour, that in a week when the moon rose red and tainted in the blood of history's course, it should once more stalk from its lair in the mountainside as a new creature, a masked fiend of startling beauty that would belie the eye of man and draw them into its jaws, to fade away into darkness as it had moons ago. The shadow darker than the night vaporated into the still landscape, surpassing the boundaries of its mortal home, retreating to its mawing plans, and then slumber.
Of Marius and the Red Sun
Of mass amounts of cover and warmth and utter pleasure, the lump within the bed linens sought to escape and flee the world of his sleep, to be rid of the blankets that struggled to hold him down, to rid himself of that which gritted his eyes still and walk among the living flesh of those awake, within the boundaries of his own limited body and not those of his imagination.
Stretching his limbs, from one arm to the opposite leg, the young man Marius, who appeared to be around twenty years of age, clambered out of bed; the first thoughts in his mind were of a certain enigmatic man who roamed the corridors in the wee hours of the morning and the latest hours of the night, such as he would now. It was six of the clock, a full three and a half hours before supper, yet they were expecting guests even before then. Leaping from the canopied four poster bed, the mattress springing at his touch and rebounding, Marius headed over to his amoire and pulled from his selection of clothing, to wear some of his finest when he greeted the oncoming wave of diverse travelers as excited about the upcoming Trist Ahn Nefaritus as he was. It practically coursed through his veins with such a speed as though it were fueled by adrenaline and he were nothing more but a charged vessel. The name itself was like a neology, a new phrase that would catch on the tips of everyones tongues even as it rolled beautifully off, making those who spoke it instantly exotic. That was the way of the olde world; it all had its mysteries, and everything had its beauty and atrocities. Like a double headed serpent, one that held all in captivity and awe, yet whose bite was as deadly as that of any creature twice its size and ferocity.
Ripping his fingers through his hair as he glanced briefly upon his appearance in the full length mirror, he smiled sheepishly as though he could not help how good he looked, though he didn't think very much of himself, and he energetically pranced from the room, passing his hands through the wash bowl and over his face on his way out.
Though Marius appeared twenty, he was actually a bit older and tended to prove this through his brief and sparse moments, far and few at times, pragmatic at others. Even so, he was still young compared to the one who had taken him in. No, that being was far older than any he had come across, all but one, but he roughly pushed this thought away and paid heed only to the vision of red behind his eyes. And the one now standing before him, a little ways down the hall, examining the pieces on the wall, most likely deciding which to take down and replace with newer, fresher works. But Marius knew it was not out of pride that this man changed the decor of his home to exhibit his art, but simply because the images that hung were painful for him to recollect. Marius desperately wanted to understand this, but this man, this creature, was a black hole that sucked everything from his being when Marius tried to get something out of him. Marius had slowly become this man's marionette, to do with as he pleased. Why? Because Marius felt every deep down gratitude for this creature of red, every love that a man ought to give his fatherly figure, every wish to the man whom he loved as more than a lover might. But he was no lover of this creature.
Marius' breath caught as he looked upon the red fledged one down the corridor. His head pounded as his inexplicably slow heart rate slugged along even more so. Could beings like him get dizzy? Could people like him pass out simply from seeing an awe inspiring moment such as he saw every morning?
Tentatively, Marius approached the master of the manor, passing without thought towards the lavishly trimmed walls, their molding dark and in contrast to their simple and plain neutral colours. His eyes were solely on the being before him, such a creature of beauty, such a creature of dark depravity in bright colour. Nothing more than a mask to be displayed, and yet, Marius knew this not to be true, for it was the mask that betrayed its master in the shadows, the mask that turned and poisoned he who had wrought it.
His footsteps were hardly audible, but still this creature of hunting skill and viciousness heard his approach, his breathe once more trapped within his pliant chest, his skin warming with the touch of blooming blush that spread throughout him. How could the corridors have heated so quickly? Perhaps the venting system was not evenly distributing the air?
“Master Satoma, how much it is a pleasure to find you on the fourth floor. I had not expected such a visit.” Marius smiled, flashing those white and perfect teeth of his partially. Truly even he, who was not so easily startled, was surprised by the appearance of Satoma here in his corridor, where he seldom came, even to change the walls. And particularly at this time of the evening. Where were the hours he would waste in his third floor study being put, but into this chance meeting?
“You flatter yourself Marius,” Satoma answered stiffly, his voice neutral and smooth, giving nothing away, hinting at no emotion what so ever but his distaste at such a suggestion. “It is not you I come for, so don't let it get to your head. I am here to replenish the freshness of the halls and you very well know it.”
With this, one last glance of blue orbs in hollow sockets, Satoma turned away and paced a bit down the hall, ignoring the heated embarrassment that Marius felt climbing into his face again. How foolish he who dared to suggest something of the sort to Satoma! How foolish and blundering he became in Satoma's presence, and how utterly miserable he felt when he was both within it and with out. Oh sweet misery! Deliver from such a nuisance as he was to Satoma.
When would the red sun rise for him that morning when it should shine upon him in the basking glory of its aureole than to shun him to cloudy skies and hollow shadows such as he walked now! His red sun, his only true reason in living, his only love in the joys of the world, was walking away slowly now, and all Marius could do was watch in dampened spirits as that which warmed him padded gracefully around the corner. He could do nothing but hang his head low in shame and submission.
Ah! But what was this? A final glance or reprieve from Satoma as his sculptured face of marble vanished behind the wall that barricaded itself between he and his vision? Surely Satoma had not thought him vain if he had taken the chance to cast one glance back on this belittled soul that walked the earth in half a state of trance and half of dim awareness of what went on beyond these walls?
Marius let his breath go, a small smile creeping over his darkened features, lighting them once more as this red sun would have if only he'd open up to the shadows who called on his warmth and brilliance. Satoma had not thought him vain enough. He had never been vain enough, as he stood in these halls; as he walked within the home and under the wing of Satoma even now.
Gabriel, the Blond Haired Lover, and the Second Home
“Gabriel,” murmured a soft and delicious voice, warm, enveloping him in its velvet richness. But at the same moment, it was also strangely repulsive to the young man whose head rested upon the leafs of pages of work before him, quill held at a loose angle from when he had fell into sleep the night before. The delicate scrawl across the page, though rushed in his mad hurry to get as many notes down as he could, was still intricately beautiful, saturating the parchment with an awe inspiring simplicity.
Dark tresses fell into his face as he rested where he had been unable to go on, but his repose was still soft and conformed to one of a university student. His lavender and white cotton shirt was still tucked in, the ribbon around his collar still intact, as well as the one that loosely bound his hair; his black slacks were still pressed of most wrinkles and he wore soft flat heeled leather boots still, as though he had come home straight from studies only to continue more on in his dormitory.
“Gabriel!” This sharper tone struck him out of his rest, his back snapping into erected poise as he looked wildly around, childishly rubbing the grit from his violet eyes as he struggled to locate the speaker who owned the disembodied voice. With slight dismay, his eyes fell on the young woman standing just behind his chair, dressed in a simple blue satin dress with matching ribbons threaded through her strawberry blond curls, her bright eyes flashing with innocent beauty.
“Ah, Lady Delouvé, you startled me. How may I be of service to you?” Absent-mindedly he looked around, scanning his room for a clock, any tell tale form of time that could realign his senses with the present and not the transcending of his own dreams, which again were dull. But this wasn't his room. It wasn't even his apartment. He had fallen asleep in the library again! The youngest student of Jiinshiku University groaned inwardly.
He sighed, waiting for her response in that semi-darkened chamber, dismally recollecting his dreams as of late. The images were always bland and slurred, presenting him with no real joy through the imagination of his sleeping mind, and anything about auditory sounds or scents or tastes in his dream seemed not to exist at all, as though it were a world only of sights that were not very conclusive. Compared to his regular dreaming patterns, these were like sputtered flames, and he worried about this.
Placing his fingers at his temples with one hand, Gabriel took a handkerchief from his breast pocket in the other and wiped his face, trying to waken his skin, refresh it in some sense as the young Delouvé stood there smiling prettily at him.
“You've fallen asleep again, Gabriel.” Her voice was stern, reprimanding, but in a playful way. “But I hope you do not forget things when you sleep as such.” Again she smiled that pretty and dainty smile. Logic told him not ask, but reason told him it would have been polite, and in such matters of etiquette, reason always won out over logic.
“What is it you speak of Lady Delouvé, for surely I have not forgotten that lovely face of yours and your name rests within my memory as well. What else may there be?” He knew it to be a fruitless escape, knew it well only because he had a suspicion she had already had an answer waiting for him before he had thought of the phrase of his question.
“My birthday is next week, Sir Gabriel. Are you going to get me anything?” Again that smile, and Gabriel only wanted to hide, the animation of this girl more than several years younger plaguing him with feelings of uncomfortable embarrassment.
“No,” he replied solemnly. “I suppose I do not know what I'm going to get you. I could get you another book, perhaps? Larger than the last so that you may have more to spend your time with instead of worrying yourself over someone like myself?” Gabriel spoke sincerely, with no hint of sarcasm, and no intent there of. He simply could not believe that she had wanted to spend so much time around him as it was, and this too worried him. As her eyes brightened, both with excitement and dismay, her lips parting to answer him, he was slipping his books into his bag with easy speed. How to escape that next proposition? Standing, carefully keeping his bag from her view as he cradled it over his shoulder, he walked to one of the many book cases that adorned the walls from ceiling to floor.
“No, no Gabriel. It is not a book I want. It is you. When will you-” She was cut off short as Gabriel handed a book to her.
“Here,” he said with hurry, hoping he could distract her for only a moment enough. “Try this one. If you like it, I will find you your own copy, and then another in similarity.”
Lady Delouvé looked crest fallen at the book, as those it were something disgusting compared to his countenance, but when she tossed it on the desk and turned to protest her adoration of Gabriel rather than books, the young man was gone. She sighed and stamped her foot. It's sound echoing lightly in the quiet stead of the library halls.
He felt the slight aneurysm of his blood flow as he stepped out into the cold recede, felt the contraction of his arteries as though he could see them, imagine the veins in his arms tightening as the dilation left them, the heat left his body upon exiting the Great Library. Locks of raven hair fell into his face, obscuring his eyes from the cold sun as he passed with an armload of books and records, carefully balanced upon a precarious precipice of invisible gravity. These he dropped off on his way back to his apartment, into the first public records center he came across. He had been using them to study the locations of residencies thought to be haunted, or even inhabited by vampires over the years. This was where his interest lay, in the happenings of that immortal race. Though he sometimes doubted they existed, simply because no one else believed them to be true, and those who resided in the houses never stayed longer than a simply human life term. Thus, Gabriel simply thought it a rumor, and passed it off as nothing more than this.
Free of books, his arms swung with cheery lightness, his bag bouncing at his hips as the strap slowly edged its way towards the slope of his shoulder, threatening to drop off if he didn't readjust it. And when he slowed to do this, carefully examining that it be placed where it would not easily slip again, a warm, strong hand gripped his upper arm, powerful,dominant, leading him a ways off the main sidewalk before he even knew what was happening.
Startled by the sudden appearance, Gabriel meant to cry out in alarm, but upon noticing who had led him astray off his path home, instantly silenced himself. He bowed his head, not daring to look this man so close in age to himself in the eye, determined he should make as little contact as possible.
Amarian, the rather tall man his age before him, striking features and blond hair, was now looking down at him, as though he didn't know what to make of Gabriel's refusal to acknowledge him, a misted pain in his vividly startling blue eyes that broke him to his heart. Oh how those eyes haunted him even now, when he could no longer even bear to think of the name of this man who held him firmly in his grasp, and that voice, which ever so gently caressed him,that had before hurt him even as it made him weep in pleasure.
“Gabriel,” murmured Amarian, his slightly tanned skin glistening in the morning sun of midwinter. “Gabriel,my Gabriel, why will you not talk to me on these matters which have unfolded our partings? Talk to me Gabriel. You cannot shut me out forever.”
“No, you're right,” Gabriel replied almost with reluctant resignation. “But I don't see why you want to talk to me. I told you, Amarian, it is over. You and I are nothing, just as you have always exhibited.” His eyes stung in memory, of how Amarian had pranced about, using their relationship as a sort of flouting, portraying what feelings they had for each other as a joke. He did not want to go back to being the puppet of one who struts in pride.
But even as he felt these things, he also felt Amarian pressing into him, his lips claiming his own, crushing him under their demand, and the tears came as he was forced to remember the littlest details. Why should this be happening? He also felt himself melting into the warmth of his previous boyfriend, like he had melted in the embrace of his mother before she had died, along with the remainder of his family, of an afflicting illness. One that had almost claimed his own life. No, he had lived to recall these things of horror, and all the much weaker for them.
Yet his fragility did not waver Amarian from having what he wanted, though God knew how Gabriel wanted to pull away. He was locked in the strong and comforting hold of this blond haired and blue eyed devil, this stunning replica of a god to him even before they had first pronounced each others names with affection.
The First Night: Arrival
Kotarou had stood outside the great doors of the manor for little more than a good five minutes, wondering how best to make his entrance, rubbing the back of his pink edged head with his bony hand, nearly disproportional with the leaned and toned figure he wore as a body, a badge. He couldn't help it; he looked good and he knew it. But it didn't matter in all the world if he couldn't make it stand out.
Emute, tired from her travels, was wary of the estate approaching in the distance. It would be difficult enough to deal with those inside, the numerous guests she had come specifically to meet with and end their acquaintances, but she also worried that her week early arrival would also stress her out. To pass the time as she sat against the trunk of a fir tree, resting with her legs propped out, she fiddled with a deck of cards. Oh if ever there was a trick a witch could perform, it was with this simple magic, so unlike her own magick. It was human, and it was fallible. She couldn't believe herself fallible when came the time, for letting a place for doubt to reside in her heart was dangerous, and therefore, she had to believe herself perfect. Quickly she hid the pentacle around her neck within the folds of her loose collared dress of navy blue satin, its ridges and valleys nearly the color of the sky now, deep, dark, foreboding. She would be lying through her teeth, and she knew that too.
Satine, a long standing resident of the house, lay within the darkness that enveloped her room. Time would pass, she thought bitterly, and she would not be there to recognize it. Of all who would enter this manor, she would be the only one leaving on that fateful night. It was no longer her place here, and though she felt gratitude that someone like Satoma could open his home to one like her, she simply knew it was best she did not get involved with the masquerade that presented itself on the horizon of a week. And so, even as she lay in the quiet shadows of what was to be her soon emptied room, her belongings were already half concealed in boxes and transportati9on would be on the way in the morrow evening.
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