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anoverloadofmusings · 5 years

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To Make Some Sense Of This Year

I’ve lived two very different lives, like many of my generation. I have the presence everyone can see. My social media feeds. The version of my experiences that I get to shape in the retelling. I travel the world, confident and charming. Then there’s the other side, the confusion, the struggles. The loves and the losses. I find this disconnect between the two difficult to handle sometimes. This year, often. It is hard to pretend to be one or the other. Maybe that’s why I’ve finally decided to put this all down. To connect the dots and accept the contradictions, and be comfortable with the multifaceted person I am. It’s cathartic, in a world where it’s a virtue to not find catharsis in a public, online outing. But I want a release from the dualism I’ve been carrying with me and hope this will help with that. I’m sorry if it seems intense, but sometimes life just is.

I hope also, that whoever decides to read this can give me the benefit of the doubt, and believe me when I say that I understand my life in comparison to others. I know where I have benefited where others have not, just where I have struggled where others have not. I do not blame a single person in my life for my struggles this year. I have no bitterness, just feel a hell lot of regret, and a hell lot of love. I am constantly growing, constantly making mistakes. My experiences might have contributed, but I am full, rounded person, and I could’ve done a lot of things a hell lot differently. Feel free to criticise me and my actions, just know that I have often done the same.

The most appropriate place to begin this I guess, is admitting that I’ve been on autopilot for much of the last ten years. After my Dad died in 2010, my Mum married again and moved back to France within three years. That relationship never really healed, after clear, incomparable differences between my stepdad and I, where he insisted through his actions that my Mum would have to choose between us. I let it go though, and got through University, lived abroad for a while, built up an impressive portfolio of photography and filmmaking, before moving back to London in 2017, and I felt generally happy with the way I had restructured my life. I was generally well liked, had interesting travel stories to entertain people with and assumed like everyone else I would fall into journalism.

I was 26 by this point, and was carrying with me an awkward truth I was extremely ashamed of. Not only was I a virgin but I had never even kissed a woman, never been intimate beyond a few chosen words and glances. What might seem trivial to many now at the time was a heavy weight. That summer that finally changed, and though it was a lovely experience with a fantastic woman, I did question why I had put so much emphasis on this for so long. It was intimate yes. But it was fun. Light. There was no earth-shattering sensation. If there was something behind that heavy weight - it wasn’t sex.

A couple years passed, and I did well in my masters, my subsequent job, along with a few dating and hookup experiences along the way. I guess by this point I felt like I had cracked the right autopilot switch. I had given up trying to understand what that heavy weight had been to me for so long, as I had enough fulfilment in my life, enough goals to keep me focused. I just kept busy, barely remembering to count the days as they passed.

Then, in early winter, I started seeing a girl. I then - miraculously - mended the incredibly complex relationship with my stepdad, after years of fighting. In early spring, I left my job and tried somewhere new - in the city. By the end of March all these things had crashed down around me. All the support I had gotten used to, it vanished. I fell into a place where I am only now beginning to recover from. Some words used for this have been depression, deteriorating mental health, emotional immaturity, quarter life crisis etc. Whatever it is, it triggered something extremely deep lying in me. Now I have had anxiety issues - like many people - for a long time, but these were all under my control by this point and I had worked myself into a healthy place to deal with them. This breakdown ruined it all. I lost all control of those anxieties, lost all motivation in my job and the two following jobs. My relationship with my family broke and has not yet recovered. I became so, unhealthy dependent on this girl for my validation that after she left, I felt so inadequate, and all those anxieties from my past swarmed back, infesting into all the corners of the structure of the strong life I thought I had built up, and multiplying like a disease. I do not want to burden any reader with the technicalities of this mental state, as I do not want to indulge them anymore, but for those who can’t identify - you lose interest and passion in everything, so nearly all of those photos and smiles you’ve seen me pull since then have been some of the hardest and forced I’ve ever had. I never hated myself as much as I did then.

I let those issues wreak havoc over my entire life. I dragged friends through months of apathy. Of speaking to them about the same, limited topics. Colleagues had to sit and watch me struggle knowing I could not reach the potential I showed in my interview and they would have to let me go. I saw myself weigh heavily on this girl, even suffocating her and draining her energy. But for so long, when family and work left, she stayed and she cared. When she finally decided to take her happiness into her own hands and make up with her ex, I realised what had happened that I had never experienced before. I had fallen in love. Not the way I imagined I would have, and honestly not how I would’ve wanted to. Not when I was like this, completely unable to show anyone my best self. And not a healthy love either, not a love built around my dependency.

I think I can rationalise the impact people can have on our lives if you consider we are all built up of experiences. Some of them are fleeting, they happen and we forget them with ease. Other experiences, days or people leave a mark. Sometimes that mark hurts, which we then try to hide or run from. It can ache to remember it, so we burry it. Other people can awaken those hidden away experiences. This girl, she wasn’t perfect, but she did not leave a hurtful mark. I can still barely think of a time she insulted me or deliberately tried to hurt me. I still find it so easy to reflect positively on my time with her. What she did - unknowingly to herself and to me - was give me a certain affection I had never experienced, throughout all those years since my dad died, and perhaps before. I think it was so normal for her to give, it’s probably normal for most people come to think of it. But it was quite profound to me. I’ve been fortunate with my friendships - some of them are deep and will last a lifetime, but I did not realise I had lacked what she gave me. It was given even more significance for happening at the same time as the relationship with my family - seemingly the rock that our strength and love is meant to be built on - diminished in the form of multiple emails from my stepdad labeling me a leech and a failure. In the face of that, her affection was an intense reminder of what I did not have from my family. It was a short relationship, and its significance will probably fade in time, but while she was in my life I was endlessly confused. And just because I had no idea how to manage feeling appreciated like that.

It’s easy now to understand why I’ve fallen so far back this year. Without sounding unbelievably cheesy, I’m really not sure what the fuck I was doing before this year began. I was a functioning member of society but I rarely had a moment of pure happiness or fulfilment, satisfied with just feeling good. And that’s not to say a relationship is fundamental to happiness, it’s just, to me, I just felt like a passerby until then. Realising now, that the lack of a constant family figure showing me love in my life - especially in the last ten years - has meant that I just stopped expecting it, if I ever expected it to begin with. And for so long since March I have felt the same, perpetually trying to find the same level of purpose in my life without a lover’s validation. This core understanding about the necessity of self validation takes everyone their own timelines to figure out. And even then, once you realise you need it, it’s another thing finding it. Initially I dated a bit and found myself transferring all that affection and need for validation onto other women so quickly, despite knowing how unhelpful and wrong that was. I’m sorry for the women who had to experience that. I’m sorry for the friends who saw me suffer and said all the right things but knew they would just have to watch me suffer a bit longer before I worked it out for myself. My purpose was gone, and I couldn’t find it anywhere, as I didn’t have a clue where to start. Then I started to indulge it, I started to ‘like’ being so low with no self esteem. It felt familiar, more familiar than confidence or success. Sympathy from others brought out similar feelings of comfort that she had given me. It became like a cruel addiction, as if I wanted to see how far I could dislike myself and drive off the rails. I failed probation after probation, not able to feel even slightly present behind a desk. I somehow kept getting jobs but continuously found faults in them, and indulged them too. I saw issues with managers which were not issues. I lost myself and argued when I didn’t actually care about my point, I just wanted to feel anger. I gave up so easily, so quickly, and forgot all the things I loved, hobbies, friendships.

But this isn’t a sad recollection. At least that’s the paradox I find myself in sometimes. Perhaps another reason why I indulged this negativity for so long was because it felt good to feel. I had never felt as good as I had felt over that winter, with her, in my job, with my family, and never felt as low as I did in the months following. Even in the miserable moments there was a part of me which loved feeling so emotional. It just felt good to realise I wasn't just a passerby anymore. I’ve always been sensitive but I had never felt that level of emotion. And it was a different level at times, both the highs and lows. I still remember a tear falling down her face as we said goodbye and the force of emotion which hit me like a hurricane. I indulged it all. I let the vulnerability which I had once tried to champion completely define me.

There’s a lot of things that could’ve happened differently. I could have gone to therapy years ago, and not dismissed my anxieties so easily. I could’ve acknowledged the emotional impact my Dad dying and my Mum leaving would end up having on me in the future. If I had done that I could’ve taken sick days at work this year and breathed, reflected, then gone into work the next day. I could’ve made better decisions, chosen better places to move to, better jobs to apply for. I could’ve done a lot. If I had tackled this all before, things might have turned out differently. Then again, maybe they would’ve happened just the same. I know now though, that things happened the way they did because I was unaware what I had been missing for most of my life, and when it came I was overwhelmed. But it had to happen at some point. It’s really because of that that I just can’t hate this girl. She was not perfect. Somebody else with different baggage maybe could’ve maybe helped me get through this. They could’ve loved me back. Her preference of talking through social media was tough to deal with at times. But what she did do was help me realise what I had denied, while on autopilot for all those years. In a way, that was her saving me. And she did it with kindness, and a warm heart. If there’s anything I’ve held onto throughout all of this, it’s that I will not let anything that happens after make me forget the countless phone calls to make sure I was alright, the encouragement when I was at my worst. She deserves her happiness now and I’m proud of myself that I can focus on that, when I could’ve hated her for leaving. That gratefulness helps me sleep at night. She is a good person. As traumatic as it all turned out, I am grateful she was my first love.

And people do get better. Sometimes it takes going through an experience like this to give you all the tools you need to get better. And it doesn’t just switch back on like a light. I am building my life up again now, but instead of rushing to the top I’m taking my time firming up the foundations. Bit by bit. I recently dated someone for nearly two months and though things could’ve developed, I found myself controlling my feelings while I was seeing her. I managed to get to know someone while not making them my emotional dumping ground. I kept that in check. That might seem small, but to me that's a success. It’s one small victory on the way to being the Jeremy I know I’m want to be. I know I considering other people's mental space better now. Therapy is helping. Learning how to move on from people who don’t understand your value, even when I want to help them find theirs, is helping. Slowing everything down, is helping. It’s still a terrifying idea, to be out in the world - standing tall and pushing through a challenge again. But it is achievable, and it is achievable because I know so much more about myself now. I don’t quite love myself yet, not to the extent I know I should. But I like my voice. I like my mind. I like how I empathise with people. I like how I earn peoples’ trust.

If you’ve got this far, thank you. I hope you can sense what I’ve felt through writing this. I don’t really want any sympathy anymore for what I’ve been through. I just don’t want to carry this around, in a lengthy, confused state of mind anymore. I want this out there, written down, where I can see the words whenever I lose focus and remember everything happened the way it did for the best. People entered and left when they needed to. I let experiences drag me right down and almost wreck my entire life, and I need to remind myself, and anybody who reads this who doubts me, that no matter how trivial this experience might sound, that pulling myself back up - with the help of a few, extraordinary people - is a sign that I am not broken.

Fuck knows I’ve made mistakes. Fuck knows we all have. I’m sorry for those I’ve hurt during all this. I hope you can forgive me, and understand I will become better because of it, and will reward you for your belief in me if you wish to give me the opportunity to do so.

And finally, though this is purely cathartic, and I am speaking more to myself than to anyone else, I hope if anyone reading can relate to any of this, to reach out like I did. To friends, family, therapy, whichever. You’ll be endlessly amazed about the capacity that people have to love and to help. There are some people I haven’t named here but they know who they are. Perhaps not appreciating that in the people around you, and expecting it purely in the arms of a lover is where I got it all wrong. But I got plenty else wrong too. And now I have a lot of time to make up, and do it all better this time.

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clansayeed · 4 years

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Bound by Choice ― II.i. The Prestige Waltz

PAIRING: OC x OC x OC (Valdas x Isseya x Cynbel) RATING: Mature (reader discretion advised)

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Choice ⥽

Before there were Clans and Councils, before the fate of the world rested in certain hands, before the rise and fall of a Shadow King ― there was the Trinity. Three souls intertwined in the early hands of the universe who came to define the concept of eternity together. Because that was how they began and how they hoped to end; together. For over 2,000 years Valdas, Cynbel, and Isseya have walked through histories both mortal and supernatural. But in the early years of the 20th century something happened―something terrible. Their story has a beginning, and this is the end.

Bound by Choice and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Choice is the only book in the series not based on an existing Choices story. It is set in the Bloodbound universe and features many canon characters.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Choice/series tag list!

⥼ PART II ⥽

— Paris, 1582. Vampires across Europe gather beneath the bones of Paris for merriment, reverence, and to honor the lives lost in a holy war. But some see this not as meace, but as an opportunity to decimate the enemy ranks no matter the price. And, as Serafine Dupont comes to learn, other's lives are a sacrifice the Trinity is willing to make.

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Beneath the streets of Paris the dead dwell restless. They take up masks and dance through the night. They celebrate freedom and life. And do so, unknowingly, for the last time.

[READ IT ON AO3]

Paris, 1582

She’s a breathtaking thing on his arm. Of course in this the age of beautiful things she still glows radiant; the star that outshines the moon.

As she always has. As she always will.

Long fingers wind through Cynbel’s golden locks absent and curious. She leaves it up to him to solve the labyrinth of the dead and instead finds herself contented in gazing upon him.

“You haven’t worn your hair this long since Venice.”

“Kind of you to notice.”

“I like it.”

“I should hope so. You spend countless hours in my company, darling mine. If you found me repulsive I can’t imagine what I would do with myself.”

Not a heartbeat passes and Isseya’s grip grows violent; feral. Nails digging into his scalp and a sudden tickling warmth on the back of his neck where blood drips down and threatens to stain his collar.

“Really, Iss’,” his sigh is long-suffering, yet he does not decline her apology of handkerchief dabbing away the mess, “do try and keep civil tonight. You know how important the evening is to me.”

Yet he knows her too well not to feel the falter in her footsteps. The way her mockery of breathing stills and leaves them as permanent and dust-covered as the rest of the catacombs through which they wander with purpose.

“Indeed.”

He would ask if she was having second thoughts about the whole affair but what would that change? Nothing.

What’s done is done. And by the end of the night he will reap what has been sown with a madman’s delight.

Up ahead the darkness gives way to shadows dancing in ritual abreast of the walls of stone and bone. Before they get too close Cynbel stops them; pulls his darling girl against him — allows himself to be pinned against the tunnel and knows her natural desires of dominance will placate her.

Even now.

And she falls into the role as easily as he gives it. Pulling his arms up, up against the linen of his sleeves catching on the stone, to hold him in place. She inhales harsh against the confines of her corset and he, too, feels suddenly tight in the chest.

“You know what this reminds me of?” she practically sings into his neck — has him sofuckingglad he decided to forgo that awful stiff collar and luckily she doesn’t mind that he can’t possibly form words right then.

“London,” Isseya answers her own question in bites across his throat, “and the rack Our Beloved had brought from the Tower… how you stretched and begged for it to end.”

Glad though he is that the attempt at distracting her with delightful things has worked Cynbel can’t help but wonder what price he’s about to pay for it. Not that he isn’t stiff in his hose — but they do have to make an appearance at some point in the night.

And Valdas will start to get worried if they do not show their faces soon.

She pulls back with eyes dark and greedy. Not too far, though, when he snaps blunted teeth forward to claim her lower lip for his own. Watching, transfixed, the way it comes back to her shining wet under the distant candlelight.

“Because I wasn’t tall enough already?”

“Are you complaining?”

“Not in the slightest.”

Cynbel snakes an arm around his lover’s waist and, all teasing aside, claims her in a familiar kiss. Familiar in that they have explored one another so intimately and so often that their bodies are one in the same; that the fabric and flesh between them no more than a false reality.

They part; trade lips for foreheads, and breathe in the silence together. As one.

“Should this night be our last night…”

He stops her there. A finger to her lips that curls to lift her chin. She is a proud creature, his darling Isseya; her head simply demands to be held high.

“Stop. You think me so foolish—nay—so weak? This is merely another night, one of many passed and many to come.”

“You cannot control everything.”

“Watch me.”

He has every confidence that they will survive the trials soon to come. They have weathered every storm, every war, every plague. This, too, they will overcome.

The masques they take from their hips to fasten are as rich as they are detailed. Perfectly carved to their features and even now he gazes upon her with a reverence. Such beauty, and to be seen beautiful by it, was worth living for.

She takes his offered hand and with it some of the fire in his eyes. No words between them, they move as one to round the last steps before the tunnel opens outward and upward into splendor.

The vaulted ceilings are a surprise; as far down beneath the earth as they are. A promise of life and freedom that the world above could never truly give them not even in the nighttime. Chandeliers hang high overhead with candles deep in their flames.

Across the ballroom — they are not the last to arrive. Similarly decorated vampires coming alone and with companions at two doorways just as open and inviting. From all corners of Paris they flock here tonight.

He looks and finds Isseya surveying him warily. So much for distraction.

“A bit cramped in here, wouldn’t you say?” There are more attendees than you assumed.

“We’re under the greatest city in the world my love. I’m sure we’ll find the room.” Then we improvise. Nothing has changed.

Nothing has. If anything their chances of living through the things to come have only grown higher.

Even in the crowd their hearts yearn for who they know stands within. Can feel themselves drawn to him, pulled along by a force more powerful than their understanding.

Yet in crossing the length of the room they are seen; more than that they are witnessed. The status their masques signify earns them collective gasps and bows alike; lesser hoping to placate what they only understand to be more than they are. More than they ever will be; for some tonight.

There are always casualties in war.

Together Cynbel and Isseya come across the only masque that could earn their respect; the only thing older than they. Would bow together anyway, would dirty the hems and knees of their finery if that was what he asked of them. Because that is the proper way to treat a god.

That is the proper way to treat their god.

Valdas looks them over with warmth that quickly ignites hot, passionate. He has always appreciated the beauty of his beloveds but this night there is a sense of urgency and finality with every action in which they partake. The greater the risk the greater the reward.

Hungry is their god — who cannot wait even for Cynbel to come up from his bow of respect before grabbing onto the man’s doublet to pull their mouths together. A kiss met with equal fervor and delight, and no less devoted when shared to their darling.

Those old enough enough to remember the days before reservation and propriety, few and far between though they are, say nothing. Those left avert their gaze and know better than to challenge masques so revealing.

“I was starting to worry you’d lost your way.” Valdas glances between his lovers; their mischief not lost on him.

“We simply took a scenic path.”

“And did it suit you?”

“As only death could.”

When they turn out to observe the party so far it is as they do everything — together as one. His gods touch finds its way into his hair and Cynbel pays no thought to it. It is sacrament, after all.

“Were the rumors true?” asks Isseya in a low breath. It earns the pair of them a heavy sigh.

“Indeed.”

“Then we should away.”

Cynbel stifles a derisive snort. “Absolutely not.”

“What you have set in motion is all the more reason.” When she speaks it is earnest and out of love. They know this. But equally she knows they are warriors first. That they crave blood for sport as well as feast.

“While the idea of the Godmaker’s head on one of their silver blades is enough to send me into a passionate heat —”

“Cynbel.”

“We’re among alike company, Valdas.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“Really,” the taller man scans the crowd with a knowing eye, “I do.”

A hush falls over the crowded ballroom — dashes away Isseya’s idle fancies of fleeing before they are found. None other than the man himself could garner such a reaction.

Between them the Made-God grows tense. His lovers share arms around him on instinct — natural and without hesitation.

They enter in deadly beauty, arms lain together with an air of presentation. See us, it says, and know your place under our heel. The response it draws is immediate. None dare allow themselves to be in the way of the King and Queen of Vampires.

And they bask in the attention like gluttons. The Bloodqueen smiles much in the same way as when they last had met — the sultry curve of lips that keeps the viewer in a trance only so that they cannot gaze up to see how it does not reach her eyes. And him — he smiles because he means it. Because he need not ask for respect from the masses, not anymore.

They stop in the middle of the floor and are given a wide berth. Gaius tightens his grip on the handle of his masque before he lets it fall from his face; the only one who could dare to pull off such an outrageous act in present company.

“Friends, subjects, loyalists;” he addresses the gathering with pride already swollen in his chest, “your welcome to this our finest achievement has been a gracious one. To see you all gathered here, to see so many of our kind in one place and pridefully so, is a gift the value of I could never have imagined.”

“Always the wordsmith, Gaius mon chér.”

She emerges from the adoring crowd a vision in red. Velvet gown swept up in dainty hand as she comes up on Cynbel’s open side without so much as a glance. The filigree of her masque dazzles in the firelight; intimate gold that frames the upper half of her face to both conceal and reveal.

A bold choice none but the hostess of the evening could aspire to.

She greets Kamilah as an old friend; takes their hands together and presses delicate Parisian kisses on either cheek. Knows the eyes of nearly every vampire in Europe are upon her as she gives a flourishing curtsy with the kiss she bestows on Gaius’ ring.

“I cannot tell you how pleased I am you could attend us tonight,” continues she, “though I will admit I was near to giving up — what with my last five invitations all met with refusal.”

Something flashes in Kamilah’s eye. Has her hand back on that of her King quickly — in restraint.

“Not refusal, Serafine. We were merely indisposed.”

And she understands. “You shall have to regale me the tales.”

“Shall we now?” asks Gaius with a raised brow. It earns him a coy smirk from the Lady Serafine.

“I insist. But now is the time for revelry! Continuer, mes amis!” On her signal the musicians resume their tune, tentative conversation growing strong once again.

To hide would be a fool’s notion. And the Trinity have been called many things, but fools not a word among them.

Demons and the Devil himself. Bloodthirsty pagans. Hellish temptations.

But never fools. The world knows better than that.

The Godmaker and his firstborn share a long look even as heads in their decorated masques and boisterous dress weave between them. Kamilah’s stare goes hard at the sight of him and for that Cynbel cannot help but feel accomplished in some way.

And because he’s in such a delightfully cheery mood — because he knows — he grins and dares a cheeky wink.

Dares only in that the sudden sting of Isseya’s claws on his upper arm is so very very worth it.

They know what must be done, now. At their god’s back the lovers stand as they approach.

“Valdemaras,” Gaius says as he offers his ring in the same way. And without hesitation—he knows better by now, they all do; this tenuous arrangement of theirs—Valdas bestows his kiss.

“Augustine.”

Nothing could ruin the Golden Son’s jubilance. Nothing.

“Little lotus,” he croons to Kamilah even as her mouth turns downward, “you’re looking in good health.”

Whatever she wants to say, she doesn’t. Bites her tongue enough for the brightest flash of copper to make the tip of his nose twitch.

Their darling goes still as stone when the Godmaker bows to her; nothing reverent but more of a courtly finesse. But as he waits she comes to realize it is her he waits upon; offers up the back of her hand clutching her fan in pale knuckles for him to kiss.

See, we can be civil. Now you must be, too.

Palpable tension such as theirs isn’t lost on the other guests, though, especially on one so close as their hostess. Who takes everyone by surprise when she dares speak of it.

“Ah, c'est intéressant,” as a loose curl falls in the eyeline of her masque, “the stories those looks could tell. Friends of yours, Kamilah chérie?”

She hesitates, as if deciding whether or not to answer.

“I believe you know of them by reputation,” — obviously, as Isseya made quite sure of that upon their arrival earlier that season — “what is that silly name of yours again, Cynbel?”

Lucky his masque hides the curl of his upper lip.

“If we’re to speak of silly things —”

“I present my lovers; Cynbel and Isseya,” Valdas interrupts, probably best for them all, and takes both of their hands in offering to the Lady, “you may call me Valdas.”

A flash of recognition in the Frenchwoman’s calculating gaze.

“Ah… Les Trois Amants.”

Isseya’s chin raises with pride. “And you can be no other than tonight’s hostess, no? Mademoiselle Dupont.”

“Please, call me Serafine.”

“Such informality…”

“It breeds a certain… intimacy, non?”

Her lovers need not worry of her — but what they know and what they do are different things. None in their little circle miss the way Valdas’ hand tightens over hers and the angle of Cynbel’s body as if to cover her from such intimate eyes. Instinct for them both; to claim and be claimed by one another for all to see.

Thankfully the pleasantries are made to end there. The soft tunes of conversation dying on instrumental lips as the concert prepares to begin playing for the first dance of the midnight hour.

“Mademoiselle, may I have he honor of your prestige?”

Even Gaius has a hard time concealing his surprise when Serafine’s hand comes out in offering to Isseya. Objectively they all understand — know the worth of a millennia by virtue of living it. But some things just simply aren’t fucking done.

Isseya knows this and still accepts. Takes their hands with a sparkle of mischief in her eye before they away to take up positions within the circle gathering on the dance floor.

Paranoia only begins to breed when Cynbel watches the Godmaker’s hand fall on the middle of Valdas’ lower back. “My prestige is yours, Valdemaras.” Not that he is given the choice — is already being led to follow.

Which leaves…

“No.”

Cynbel’s eyebrows barely raise in surprise. Not that he’s entirely inclined to do so with her, either, but they seem to have little say in the matter.

“You would rather take the first dance with someone so mundane?” He sweeps a lazy gesture across the floor. “You know none save our companions are even close enough in age.”

Kamilah’s eyes narrow; she scans the floor for those left unpartnered as though someone will spring miraculous from the stone with enough years under their belt to not serve as a grave insult to her.

He doesn’t have to look. No one else will do.

“I doubt one dance will be the end of you, little lotus.” Offering his hand in defeat for them both.

“You give yourself too much credit.”

“Luckily ‘tis not my credit you need, but my prestige.”

They slide in together, hand in hand, moments before the waltz begins. No effort made on behalf of either to keep the disdain from bleeding through their garb to stain the floor at their feet.

This is simply the way things are done in polite society. They know this. Both of them helped shape it in their own way. They’ve certainly had the time to.

With their betters paired off it was simply the only way to save face. For either of them to dance with one of the lesser attendees would have been tantamount to suicide of status. No other vampire in attendance could have been over a millennium—not even the Lady Serafine. But being a hostess had its perks, and Cynbel could attest… his darling Isseya was so very worth it.

One of the violinists drags the first note out; a true delight to perform for an audience with hearing unsurpassed.

Cynbel lays his hand on the cusp of her waist. Kamilah squeezes his hand hard enough to grind bone. Good, he would expect nothing less than resistance.

Humans held court to catch a glimpse of their betters. For their kind it was this — La Valse de Prestige, the Prestige Waltz. Faces trained on their partners all around but eyes unable to help themselves in how they wander.

There is no slow build. There is only the abrupt beginning, and the flurry of the dance.

Here lay the ability—nay the obligation—to pass judgment on one another. On who danced with whom; on what masque partnered with another. For many it was a matter of life and death. For the likes of the Trinity, of the Godmaker and his Queen it was a chance to see a new breed of blooded potential. For the rest; a fruitless attempt to climb the staircase.

Only it wasn’t so much a staircase as a sheer cliff dropping off into an abyss.

Even in the confines of her dress Kamilah’s movements are limber and fluid. He hardly has to guide her at all.

“You look well.”

“If you are attempting to make me falter —”

“Which would look terrible on behalf of us both. Can I not give a simple compliment?”

“No, you cannot.”

Hands joined they follow the motions; fling themselves outward with faces turned away. Cynbel sees Isseya in almost direct opposite. Their eyes meet and as one they see their beloved focused on his own movements on the far curve of the room.

And they pity him. Know firsthand how beautifully he can dance… but in the hands of the Godmaker he is made mortal again — if only for a short while.

His exact argument against coming tonight, and why they had never ventured to the crypts with their beautiful promises of community before.

If they were lucky, perhaps the events of the night would change that.

What was the phrase, ah yes. To kill two birds with one stone.

“For a man so craven to violence, you feign deep thought quite well.”

Blue eyes unfix themselves from a rapidly-changing distance to lay on the Bloodqueen. “Was that you asking what my mind wanders to?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why say anything at all?”

Of course he knows why; the din of hushed conversation is all around them. Attuned ears catch the familiar bell of Isseya’s laughter. A couple at his back carry on a hissed debate over Cynbel and Kamilah’s statuses — why their masques are so revealing and embellished.

They are a gaping void of silence in comparison. But he’d rather she say it.

She doesn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Very well,” clicking his tongue—he dares to be civil with the woman who nearly left him to join the ashes that littered Pompeii, “when did you and the Godmaker set sights on Paris?”

“France has been home to our court for several decades now.”

Our court. Two words that drag his sights along the room. Surely not this court, not with the surprise at his attendance as there had been. “And before that?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“I’m writing a memoir.”

“Of course you are. Always such a learned thing you were, preferring the company of books over bloodshed.”

Rouged lips tick in her effort not to smirk. Personally he finds her wit humorless and dry.

“If you must know… we only recently came up from the Mediterranean. There was rumor out of Venice that sent us into hiding; a hunter who had felled the great Bloodqueen.”

She is strong but still so young. What a difference two thousand years makes; in the eyes and in the mind, in the control of the body. But there is still a mystery that can render even the oldest of their line a prisoner to their impulses.

He knows it well.

He lets their eyes meet; holds her captive with the light stroke of his thumb along the outside of her index finger. A direct touch; a private one. But enough to release the sudden grasp of iron at his words.

There is a part of Cynbel that relishes in her silent suffering. Because even the sight of her reminds him of Rome, of his Lord taking a knee to keep his lovers alive.

And then there is a part that feels her pain as his own. Who remembers the howl of his own bleeding lungs at the sight of the sword that nearly came down on Isseya’s neck. Too soon, too soon.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” is all he says. And he hopes that, even if for the rest of their dance, she believes him.

The music ends as abrupt as it began. Almost as if the musicians were taken in the middle of the piece — but they all know better. The Prestige Waltz is a symbol as much as it is a dance. And are they not all to be ended with a swift act of a cruel fate?

Around them bows and curtsies of thanks. The orchestra starts up a far more leisurely tune. The formalities are done.

Cynbel gently pries himself from the little lotus’ grasp. Kisses the back of her hand and risks everything to whisper against her skin.

“I would not be displeased if you survived tonight.”

Kamilah tugs her hand back and the inevitable question that he will not answer is poised on her lips — but the return of his lovers is reason enough for Cynbel to take a more permanent leave of her.

“I like her.”

He snaps a look to Isseya, very nearly alarmed, before the realization that she stares at Serafine with delight edging on desire.

“She certainly knows how to throw a party.”

They both linger in a half-silence; so familiar now that a voice should follow but it does not. And has them turning, in sync, to Valdas’ silence with curiosity.

They comfort him as only they can; her touch on a cheek, his hand at a waist. Giving him only the praise and adoration their Made-God deserves even when he looks as he does now — when he looks as though he does not.

Such times are when he needs it most.

When Valdas finally speaks it is with crimson eyes. Once following the Godmaker’s eyes move across the floor now given just as intensely to Cynbel much to his surprise.

“Your amusement for tonight must be postponed.”

Surely he speaks madness. “Not even your divinity could do such, darling.”

“Do whatever you must — but none shall come upon us tonight.”

So foreign is how Valdas pulls from his lovers’ touches that they are left, for a moment, unmoored.

“It cannot be done.” Cynbel repeats in fewer words. Harder, clipped.

“It must.”

“It. cannot.”

The hand Valdas runs over his own face trembles with the weight of him. “Then we are all doomed.”

He tries all he can; reaches out but finds his touch rejected — outright rejected. Tries to speak but the words simply never ring right in his ears. Companionship for as long as they have had comes with its share of arguments but this…

Something so small, so inconsequential. Yet the disappointment brimming from his Love and Light is… rattling to say the least.

Yet the answer is as plain as day.

“Does he know?”

Here in their secrecy they dare not chance a look. Cynbel has already risked enough saying what he has to his consort.

It’s a relief to them all when Valdas shakes his head. “Not quite. But that means so little. And with him here… they could never hope to win anyway.”

“It isn’t my intent to let them win. And should he fall prey to their righteous hands… well all the better.”

Not for the first time Valdas silences him with a kiss. Bruising and harsh; holding his jaw in place because he is commanded to accept such a gift. As if he could do anything less.

“Cynbel, my Golden Son…” They pull from one another with obvious reluctance. Foreheads resting as their blind hands search and find sanctuary in that of their third.

He isn’t prepared to hear the crack in his love’s voice. It wounds him far worse than a stake ever could.

“Please. Save your appetite for another night.”

“What is done cannot be undone.”

Isseya steps between them. Steals a kiss in offering from them both. The temple of her always demanding more, more, more that they give her without hesitation.

“You cannot fault him for that.” Because she knows her strengths Isseya punctuates her words with a forlorn twinkle of the eye. Squeezes Cynbel’s hand behind her and he knows — knows even gods are made pliable under such a gaze.

The music picks back up before Valdas can speak. All around them the cacophony of merriment and delight and they cannot let their worries cut through such a veil lest they be discovered… something even their Maker knows.

“On your head be it.”

His dismissal is clear. And something Cynbel will not take lightly. He takes that benevolent hand up to his lips for a kiss. “Trust that I will keep you safe, my Light, my Love. As I always have.” He dares to look upwards and is met with tragedy in dark eyes. “As I always will.”

A shock of red pulls from the dancing crowd towards them and the Trinity pull from one another — close but not uneasily so.

When the Lady Serafine takes them in her mirth wavers for the briefest moment. Something that cannot be helped — something about them has always roused suspicion even in the merriest of souls.

They are close; closer than can be defined with words in any language, closer than anyone can understand. That kind of devotion creates a wall between them and the world.

It is meant to.

“I had hope to pull you into the revelry… but perhaps it would be out of turn of me.” Even with half of her face hidden her hesitance is transparent.

Valdas steps forward — one breath quicker than his lovers — and offers their hostess his arm.

“We would be the ones out of turn to decline the lady her dance.” He muses; smiles down as she takes his upper arm softly, tugs him towards the mingling array.

The look he throws back to his lovers is a reassuring one.

Enjoy the night while you can.

The intent is to take the hands of the next partner — something the rest of the circle does with ease.

Yet as Cynbel looks down… down… down until he rests his eyes on his would-be partner he stops and finds himself unsure.

How is he to proceed when his partner is…

“Are you well, monsieur?” Yet even when the child asks it is clear he has no intention of letting the taller vampire get away so easily. Grasps Cynbel’s hands with his own and the comparison in size is almost astounding enough to trip his feet. As it is — he’s now more conscious of every step than ever.

“Quite.” Not as smooth of a save as he would prefer, but better than none.

A familiar trilling laughter whirls his head to the sight of Isseya with an unfamiliar man. Her eyes, as ever, fixated on her golden lover. Much to her partner’s obvious chagrin.

The child whirls the pair of them wild and free and with all the abandon of youth.

“The pleasure is all mine!”

“Indeed.”

Help me, his silent cry to Valdas; who has taken up with a slim woman obscured fully by her masque. His act of generosity for the night.

As predicted the moment his lover pulls himself from her grasp she is flocked by other, less prestigious attendees eager to bask in the attention given by someone so old.

He approaches them calmly — calmer than Cynbel would like but appearance is everything even at the eleventh hour — and easily slides his lover from the young man’s embrace.

“Forgive me, Marcel,” he muses to the child, “but I find myself wilting without my beloved’s touch.”

Marcel, with an air of familiarity Cynbel doesn’t quite understand, coos at the pair of them before skipping off to a different part of the room. His boisterous demeanor seems equally repulsive to his chosen victim; a surly man with a surlier masque in armor that doesn’t quite shine like it should.

He keeps note of that. The only one adequately prepared for what is to come.

“I know that look.”

A crooked finger under his chin draws Cynbel’s attention away and to the center of his world. To the hesitance he sees still but not without its own resignation. That his god humors him still is a blessing without compare.

“What look?” He’s always feigned innocence terribly.

He interrupts the purse of Valdas’ lips with a kiss. Tangles his fingers in dark hair like staining himself with shadow and cares little for anyone who might be watching. Their kind may try to keep up with the social niceties of humanity but they will never be ruled by it.

“You are not the only soldier here, my Golden One.”

“Good, then they may stand a fighting chance.”

“And will you rally them?”

“Hardly. This is between Baltasar and myself; another battle in our seemingly endless war.”

He continues even when a hand claps over his mouth. Even when his god’s eyes bleed red and chance hasty looks to assure they are unheard.

To utter such a name in present company may very well doom them all.

“Relax, my divine love — I would not speak were I worried of discovery.”

“I doubt that.”

“You doubt me?”

“Only in that I know your desire for bloodshed is enough to fill the Seine to brimming.”

The smile such a compliment earns is, obviously, not meant for so. Yet even at the pout of Valdas’ bottom lip Cynbel cannot help but feel proud to be known as such.

He gathers his Maker close with one arm; protects him from the world as he always has. As he always will. “Everything I do, I do for you and Isseya.” Peppering kisses across his tanned throat just shy of the stiff collar. “Even now it may seem petty or trifling, but when we are free of their wretched hounds at our heels you will understand.”

It takes longer than he’s used to but eventually the inevitable comes — eventually Valdas does yield to each touch. Though not without a sigh of his own; his own way of saying he does not approve, but he will not stand in the way.

It is a middle ground to which they have grown familiar.

He is always forgiven.

It is a break in the heavy clouds which have hung over the vampires of Paris for too long. A brief flicker of moonlight which they bathe in, frolic through not unlike the pagans of old. There are even a few times in which — only to be certain there is no suspicion to be found — Cynbel looks to see true enjoyment on the Godmaker’s carved features.

A sight that makes him ill.

Following a dance that certainly could have been performed with the entirety of her ensemble but was much better enjoyed in nothing but her underclothes, Isseya drapes herself over the back of the chair both her lovers occupy. Not a space to fit two grown men but like everything they make it work.

She leans forward expectantly and devoted as they are the men comply; showering her throat with kisses and bites worthy of the envy the less prestigious among their kind have thrown their way all evening.

“Do you think they might begin to grow suspicious?” she asks idle; winding her clutches at the backs of their heads as possessive as they are thoughtless. An act of instinct.

Cynbel flicks the tip of his tongue over the shell of her ear. “Why would they?”

“We’ve a reputation for abandoning these affairs for our own.”

“They should be honored by our continued presence.”

“And yet whispers abound.”

He pulls back to watch his lovers where their temples touch. To bask in the glow they create together. Almost seems a shame to ruin an evening of their radiance but… no.

That’s just a little seed of doubt. Something to carve out of him like fleshrot.

“That my heart —” thumb brushing over Isseya’s lips, “— and my soul —” other hand cupping the strong angle of Valdas’ jaw, “— continue to doubt me so is insult enough. Lest they forget that I do this for them and the pleasure I take from it is not solely selfish in nature.”

Walking away from them is a difficult thing; always has been, always will be. But difficult things are merely difficult — not impossible. And one more word from them against him may just be the spark that ignites his smothered temper.

He hears them call out but resists the impulse to turn back. Leaves the merriment through one of the few doorways and casts off his masque as he does. Prestige, masques; he could care less for the things that can be bought and bribed into.

Let them meet him across a battlefield with naught but their hands as fists and see, then, that he will always win. Such is the way of the soldier, of the hunter. Of the primordial creatures they are yet seem to have forgotten.

He throws a fist in a fit of rage. Watches it collide with the wall of bone with a sickeningly delighted crunch that breaks the face of a skull off into little pieces. So fragile, so withering.

So fucking satisfying to see.

“At what point do they cease to become faces?”

Without her masque she is of the same beauty, though perhaps with more emotion about her now no longer hidden.

Serafine’s fingertips trail along the rows of foreheads; some still with places for the eyes and jawbones and some not unlike the poor victim of Cynbel’s rage.

Dirt and bone dust gathers on the heavy fabric at the train of her dress. She doesn’t seem to mind.

He holds her gaze as he reaches out to an almost perfectly preserved skull. Caresses the voided eyes with his fingertips and hooks his thumb through a gap in the teeth. All it takes is the slightest twitch of muscle — no longer preserved almost or not.

Serafine flinches; a telling thing he does not miss.

“I would assume when I do that.”

“I mean the faces behind the bone. To whom these lonely heads once belonged.”

He regards her with a glint in his eye. “I heard tell of the far-reaching influence of the Mademoiselle Dupont but I had no idea she knew so many.”

The coy smile that tugs at her lips is forced. An easy thing — the hallmark of a woman used to the machinations of courtly intrigue. She could learn a thing or two from his darling girl; she does so without tell.

But the silence between them echoes. Hard and bright. It makes him sigh.

“If one sees a sea of bones and plucks them by identity, they will do so regardless of whether they are alive or dead.”

A bold thing to admit. There is power in truth but when the truth is soaked in the blood of ages…

“I am sorry if this is not the answer you were looking for.”

“Non, no… I would rather the reality than a beautiful lie. We carry such lies enough, do we not?” Cynbel raises an eyebrow; there is no vanity in the way she tucks a lock of curls behind her ear. “You and I would be no different than these bones, were our bodies to show the years. Yet we remain beautiful well into eternity.”

“Some more than others.”

“Indeed.”

But that isn’t the reason the hostess abandoned her own affair. Now is it?

When she looks from one dead thing to another Serafine is met with expectant eyes. She has the decency to feign a flush.

“Forgive me—but what sort of hostess would I be were I not to entertain all of my guests?”

“You have entertained us enough.”

“‘Us?’”

Cynbel stills his exploratory hand. “My lovers and I.”

Us — we — always a unity. Together even when they are apart.

The woman nods. “Ah, oui. I count myself among the lucky few to have been graced with their prestige this night. But not yet from you. It leaves a woman to wonder why.”

“I doubt it has escaped your keen notice, Mademoiselle Dupont, that my social skills are lackluster in comparison to my better selves.”

“And you would not stray from such notions even for the sake of propriety?”

It makes him snort a laugh — a noise that takes his companion by surprise. Brings an easily-detectable pity to his eyes.

“Now it is I who must be forgiven.”

“For what, monsieur?”

“For in any way giving you the impression that I am proper.”

Laughable, really. A joke he will think of fondly for years to come when all this is done.

And should she have any doubts in his words he would have those cast aside, too. Closing the gap between them in a single stride. Escape through such narrow corridors more than a fleeting whimsy as he leans against the burial wall to take her in.

Cynbel would be lying if he said the minute trembling of her under the touch of his thumb was not exciting.

There is a different fear in their kind than that of humans. Humans are always afraid. But vampires… no no. Vampires fear with reason, cause; knowledge. They fear things that deserve to be feared. Things that have earned it.

And he has earned it so.

“A room full of admirers, the progenitor of our lineage, the prestige of the Bloodqueen—of Les Trois Amants, or two of three anyway, tucked beneath your skirts…”

With thumb and forefinger Cynbel raises her chin; easily tilted upwards to his unabashed amusement, “I find it hard to believe a hostess with such pretty achievements to crown herself with would willingly follow a single solemn soul because of something as silly as duty.”

The change under his hand is equally a delight. How Serafine steels herself; hardened eyes and a clenched jaw and command dripping from painted lips.

“Believe me, or do not. That is —”

“I do not believe you, no. I believe someone sent you out here to me. A little lotus, perhaps?”

Regret, like a shooting star in the endless sky. There one moment and gone in a flash; burned behind the eyelids but never to be seen again.

He should not have told her.

Inconsequential.

“You would do well to back. away.”

The chance to answer—or act—never comes. Not when the ground rumbles over their heads and noises foreign to all but the valiant begin to trail in on the same chord as the silenced orchestra. Then the thundering boom of a cannon, of doors blown from their hinges and the singing opera of swords torn from their sheaths.

“Finally…” Cynbel exhales like ecstasy; picturesque like the trembling waif on her wedding night.

The armies of the faithful have arrived.

#bloodbound #bloodbound fanfiction #choices fanfiction #gaius augustine #kamilah sayeed #serafine dupont #oc: cynbel #oc: valdas #oc: isseya #oblv: bound by choice #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

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