Apologies [Vamane.]

[Jac[leen]]

Between work, and the commute, and existing within a mostly stable relationship there was little time left for Jacqueline on her own, to simply tend to the musings of a twenty year old girl. Sure, there was less to worry herself over now, but more often than not people needed space for themselves to exist upon their own.

It’s why Jac found herself giving some sort of an excuse for leaving - Miss Daisy needed a walk, it was simple as that, and golden retrievers did need to be walked, and often. They were large pups, after all, and not meant to be cooped up within a one-bedroom apartment, as the poor pup most often was; a music shop wasn’t exactly a place for a hound, either. So, it’d been easy enough to earn her passage out doors, with dog in tow, sans leash of course.

And of course the hound follows at her heels almost eagerly, that wolfish smile that only dogs seemed to muster settled over Daisy’s features. The pup was simply glad to be out and about with that brisk winter air nipping upon their heels. Oh, make no mistake, the weather wasn’t that bad, after all, it wasn’t raining, nor snowing, and the sidewalks had been cleared of all signs of snow. In all truth, it was decidedly pleasant out!

So, the two of them walked, in relative silence. There was no need for words between the two, as, well, Daisy was a simple dog, and couldn’t understand Jac’s babblings anyway.

But then Daisy’s even gait comes to a halt, and that pup which had previously been caught up and along her side drops back with a prick to those once floppy ears. There’s no doubt in Jac’s mind that the dog had heard something, though it’s all a question of what she heard; more often than not it was nothing important, and the pup would catch up with her with a quick click to her tongue. “Daisy,” Jacqueline demands the dog’s attention only to be met with a brief glance in her own direction before cocking her head once more, “C’mon, let’s go home,” Jac utters, though in all truth she wasn’t quite ready to head back in that direction.

Though Daisy doesn’t bother to listen and simply lopes off it what seemed to be the other direction.

Perhaps Jac hadn’t been assertive enough, or perhaps it was something else entirely but Daisy never seemed to listen to her. This wasn’t the first time this happened, after all. It wasn’t the first time Daisy’s attention had been drawn elsewhere by a sound, or even a scent, and she simply took off though she were shot out of a cannon, and of course, all Miss DeVen could do was pick up her own pace and follow behind whilst calling out those commands for the young pup to stop.

Of course Daisy didn’t yield until those forepaws of hers were thumping energetically upon some young man’s chest, knocking him back, and onto his rump, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Instead she pinches those blue eyes of hers shut and braces herself for some sort of berating on how her dog should be on a leash, or something of the sort.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologizes prematurely.

[Vamane]

Vamane was there, in the dark void, only just now waking from the beguiled hold of his sleep in the ground. He stood among the headstones of the graveyard, a black, dirty speck lingering about like a risen corpse. The stench of death lay heavy in his tattered, rumpled black coat, and the same with his matching jeans and shirt. In his hand he held a mangled black cloth. A blindfold.

The City greeted him with a strong, sweet breeze from the South. It didn’t last long, but the air relaxed him. And so the thirst came. The thirst he couldn’t rid of, the thirst that was always there. The pulsating, pounding, punching into his brain of, “Feed! Feed!” Humans were near, racing back to their feeble little homes, going on with their feeble little lives as if any of what they do matter; at this moment he could seize them in his arms - the white, frail looking things - and drain their lives out in red. No. The monster wouldn’t reign tonight. The humanity left inside it would.

First he took to the low roofs, aching with the roar of voices and thoughts surrounding him: Radios playing in gas stations, intimate conversations in passing cars and behind closed doors. Seedy little thoughts fluttering across the air, and falling to his ears like dying insects. Make it stop. Make them stop.

Even in his blindness he felt their stares. The confused but awing looks he gained from most, if not all, humans. The humans who knew what he was, then those with their suspicions, and those whom had not a clue of why his skin was so pale, like stone, or his movements so graceful and defined. Why would this pale boy be out alone in the middle of the night? It wasn’t safe for someone his age, sixteen - seventeen? They couldn’t be more wrong. Dead wrong.

They cringed back from him. He, the beautiful young man with an angel face, had an aura to recede from. And eyes to scare a tiger.

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright . . .

Vamane had bloody distorted eyes. They hurt him often, so in response, he would scratch them - as if that would help. He knew no better. Most of his days were spent in a trance-like, dream-like haze. The world was his dream, this vampiric life his nightmare.

He fed. Vamane took no pride in his killings, so only the evil-doer would do. If he took out one bad human in this city, that would be one less good human - if there was such a thing as good - killed. One good deed among his many wrongs. He wasn’t asking for forgiveness - He couldn’t be forgiven; no one left to forgive him.

The pallid streets were cold and dead to him. The people were empty shells that cowered back from him. He loved it, and hated it. The power to scare mortals, but how lonely it was. . . He wore his blindfold to shield the shameful sores of eyes, and in itself shielded his own presence. Just another dirty face in the crowd to them.

He smelled it coming before it happened. Paws. A dog pushing on his small figure, causing him to fall back embarrassingly on his own butt. All the guards Vamane had set up to hide himself faded in his confusion. Hunters? A hunting dog? He imagined pain. He felt what he imagined; his face distorted, scared. Then an apology: “I’m so sorry.” Lovely voice, it was. A woman’s. Music on his ears.

“Sorry?” he repeated the word, the only word he could muster up.

[Jac[leen]]

Jac’s pretty blue eyes widen at the young man for a short lived moment before she’s even daring to make a move closer. No, she’s not afraid, or anything of the sort. Why would she be? She was a monster, after all, though she didn’t quite feel like it. Still she’d heard time and time again that vampires were, in fact, monsters. However, Jac still managed to remain compassionate, and, well human, to be frank over all else.

Still, monster or no, she was simply in shock. Why couldn’t that damned pup behave herself? Well, it’s a bit late to regret not having some form of a leash, “Yeah, sorry,” she apologizes once more, sounding a slight confused, “She’s my dog,” she clarifies thereafter with a knit to her brows, almost embarrassed to confess her ownership. Well, it wasn’t her dog, so much as it was her boyfriends, but she was wholly responsible for her this time around!

Still, Jacqueline comes to fumble closer toward the young man upon the ground, half climbing over him, only to wrap those thin arms of hers beneath Miss Daisy’s chest so she may lift the heavy dog from her place upon this young man’s chest, “Get off, damned Diva,” Jac scolds the pup, though only verbally before the small woman is simply hefting her upwards before shuffling her off. Heaven knew the dog weighed about the same as the young Miss DeVen, it was a feat to say the least of it!

It’s then she observes this casualty of the war which was dog walking. Her dark brows furrow for a short moment as she observes that blindfold. And it was a lucky thing he was blind folded, lest he become offended by that look upon her face. It’s confused to say the least of it, though it hosted more concern than pure confusion, though that blindfold certainly couldn’t be her fault. Was her returning home from lasek surgery and her dog had just ruined his eyes? Or was it something else entirely? Jac was none too sure.

“Uh, are you okay?” Jac comes to ask of him, offering up a single hand so he may take it, and she may escort him upwards and to his feet once more, “She’s usually not this bad. I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” Jac babbles onwards, only to draw her hand back with the realization that he wasn’t exactly going to take it. Was he knocked out? Once more worry washes over Jac’s features and she bites rough to the lower tier of her pout, her hand lifting to worry upon the barbell of that lip piercing of hers.

“Is there something wrong with your eyes?” she asks of him, suddenly, pinching a single eye shut. As if it weren’t bad enough that Miss DeVen was already a socially awkward young adult, there was a potential birth defect in the mix that Jac needed to tip toe around too.

It’s then Jac settles toward the bend of her knees, bare flesh settling upon the cooled sidewalk so she may more appropriately tend to him. A soft fingertip lifts to touch upon his brow, and brush hair back and from his features with a deep set scowl.

[Vamane]

Vamane suppressed his inner gnawing to scream. His ears pounded, and his heart caught in the pale vein of his throat. God, he was weak, and so delirious at this moment. He needed to feed again. The thirst was never satisfied. Where was the closest tavern from here? He needed a drink, at least something with blood in it. Something to sooth the mind. But in his pocket there was no money and no cash; only three keys for the three places he loved: His wife’s home, His sire’s home, suppose to be his, too, and his dirty old room back at that one tavern.

“Yeah, Sorry,” the woman said, drawing him back to the harsh pains of reality. “She’s my dog.” The dog, he thought. The dog had jumped on him. The dog, that dog, it was still there! “Your dog,” he said, in a low whisper after the woman had spoken again. She moved closer, scaring him farther into himself. He flinched back as if she were going to harm him. Instead she pulled the dog off, giving him room to breathe. Vamane stayed still, frightened and unsure. “Get off, damned Diva,” she had said. He didn’t move.

The woman and her dog had terrified him. Usually in all these places he traveled, and all these people he passed, he frightened them. Vamane, in his mysterious ways, gathered attention wherever he went, good or bad. Like a spider, he was more afraid of them then they were of him. The blindfold was the knocker on the cake. It gained curiosity. Why was he wearing it? Where did it come from? Is it some sort of cult thing? Is he . . . blind?

“Uh, are you okay?” She offered him her hand, but he refused of course. Stayed in his stone-like position. His skin, itself, appeared like stone; as white as it, as cold. At times it felt as hard as it, too. Someday he, himself, would be just a statue. Stop moving, stop feeding - but oh, this is off subject. His mind drifted to distant thoughts. He focused back on the woman who then said, “She’s usually not this bad. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” Gotten into who? He’d already forgotten about the dog, his mind drifting with the shadows that taunted him to come and play. Oh, the dog! Yes, that dog; it was the reason for this meeting. Fate?

“Is there something wrong with your eyes?” she asked. He moved only in the slightest, a tilt of his head, his mouth parting in confusion as well as curiosity. Who was this woman with the pretty voice and dangerous dog? “No,” was all he could say. Then her hand moved towards him, and he shuffled back along the ground, his bosom scraping along the ground. The metal of his belt screeched; both his arms raised in defense. He gave off the impression of a scared child, lost and alone. Don’t hurt me!

[Jac[leen]]

So there was nothing wrong with his eyes. Supposedly. Jac’s soft mouth purses into a thin sort of line with resistance to point out that he was wearing a blind fold with the moon high overhead. She opts not to argue over this fact, though, and simply gives a silent, and potentially unseen shake to that pretty little head of hers. For once Miss DeVen wasn’t in the mood for arguing her point - not that she took advantage of that urge very often, anyway.

“Well,” Jac sighs out, righting herself so she may smooth back those dark locks of hers. Her brows furrow for a short moment. What was she to do now? The boy didn’t seem very eager to right himself, but Jac, on the other hand, was. She wanted to be sure that he was okay, and his head was fine, not to mention elbows and palms, and any other problem area one encounters while being knocked to the floor. Scraped palms, elbows and the like. Not to mention nowadays there was always the issue of potentially snapping a phone, or cracking the screen to an iPod.

Which Jac couldn’t afford to repair. Perhaps she should simply be on her way.

Morals were truly a bitch.

“Daisy!” Jac scolds once more as that young pup trots all the closer to this young gent, only to bump and brush the tip of her nose against the curve of his lad’s neck before snuffling on upwards and toward his ear. “Just leave the poor boy alone,” Jacqueline begs of the dog, sidling close to hook her fingertips within the dog’s collar to once more tug him away, “Not everyone likes puppies, you know,” she murmurs, speaking exclusively to the dog caught beneath her grasp. So with Daisy off of his abdomen once more Jac stoops low to eye this young man yet again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” had he even said that he’d been okay in the first place? Perhaps not, though this would be the perfect time for him to assure her that he was doing okay, despite being knocked on his ass. “Listen,” Jac utters next, stooping low and to her knees once more, “It’d make me feel better if you just got up,” she sighs out softly, “I just want to be sure you’re okay,” she grunts out thereafter with a furrow to her soft brows.

Jac delivers an almost stern look, then, accompanied by a soft purse to her lips.