silvercrows

[silvercrows]

“I have doubts that they will stay and I have doubts that they will leave. Why take the risk, especially when I’m so new to all of this information? They’ll have the same questions and more that I do and I don’t have answers. There’s no use throwing the rest of my life into chaos.” Sera half laughed, half scoffed, at the turn her existence had just taken. Why not accept it? She and Rowan had already been through the how, the why, and the definitely. She was half vampire.

“I have questions for you. You don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to, they’re kind of personal. But... How long have you lived as a vampire? Do you have anybody mortal close to you that knows, understands, and accepts you? Most importantly, do you have a good life even in this existence?”

In some ways, this red headed vampire was her only ally for now. He understood her existence better than anybody else would, he’s been willing to talk with her through it, and could have an established life that could help prove to Sera that it works out. It felt like she just got alienated from everybody in her life, but at least maybe Rowan would be willing to answer some questions while he was by her side.

+roguenobility

“It is not the end for you, merely the opportunity for a means to better understand who, and what, you are.” There were ways to survive. He had done so for over a century.

The Gaelic lord was not altogether harsh, despite her outburst painfully hammering his sensitive hearing, and causing him to cringe through a mild show of fangs. He knew there was a tumultuous wave of emotion crashing against her now, as the waters of the Ghost Sea would pummel the dark rocks upon which Castle Volkihar stood on a stormy day, as the origin of her vampiric nature was cast into the light for her to see. She was angry, quite possibly afraid. She had every right to be. Rowan was aware there was no sense in stoking the fire, yet he would not be silent as the death that became him.

“Do you truly suppose that, in your heart, you are certain the people you love will abandon you because of your nature? Are you doubtless the worth they see in you will deplete when the truth is fed to them?” 

He, at least, had Farkas and the rest of the Companions, the wolves of Jorrvaskr, in the know – but Runa was still unaware. In that moment, Rowan felt Sera’s fear. It was a fear that plagued him daily. To cause those who loved him to be struck by an arrow of terror in their hearts was never an initiative of his.

[silvercrows]

“I’ve been working on a spell for you. I want to give this to you, and I want to give you the power to keep it forever. It’s called a mage light. It should help you be able to see all on your own. My goal is to give you your eyes back so that you can see the world with me and all of the beauty in it, and maybe one day be able to see just how beautiful you are. This is the best I can do right now, but I swear to you Kami, one day I’ll find out how to give you 100%.”

[silvercrows]

`roguenobility:

The retelling of Sera’s family life struck Rowan with a pang of guilt. Like her mother, he too gave the frequent excuse that he had already eaten before the evening meal, to his daughter. All these secrets… he was doing to her what Sera’s mother had done. Yet, how could he draw that curtain aside? How could he even begin to go about explaining it?

It was a train of thought he saved for another time and place.

“It sounds to me as though the pieces of this puzzle are falling into place,” Rowan surmised. “Think about it, now. No place with which to burn a fire and keep warm in the living quarters of the home. Questionable dining habits. Changes in your mother’s face. Were it not for the other fragments of evidence, I would possibly exclude that last detail… but, considering what you have said, I do not think it is not something you can overlook.”

He extended her a temperate, advisory look.

“I’ll tell it plain and true as the thoughts running through my mind, lass. I believe your mother was a vampire. If you wish to unlock the answers to the questions you keep, you must first bring yourself to accept this.”

Sera stared blankly at the stars above. Typically, the random twinkling was soothing. Right now, it reflects her slowly growing internal rage. In one move, she threw her fist across the air above her face, throwing dirt across the sky, and jumped to her feet with a soft hiss at the inky black above.

“And if I accept this, what’s the next step? Knowing can’t change anything. What do I do with my fucking life from here on? I can’t tell anybody, I’ll get killed. So I get to watch my mortal mate and my mortal little sister die while I walk around, looking like this, for quite a damn long time. I get to live alone, lonely, and in hiding instead of having a family, friends, or anybody that knows anything about me, can help me, or I can even fucking talk to. Not that it’s that different from the day I left my family, but it was because I at least had my girlfriend to run to and my sister who loved me regardless. I can’t tell them now because I don’t really need them leaving me and sooner than they will when they die. So great, this is just a shit icing on the cake of my life. I thought it was going okay - balancing my confused existence with my social life. But what the fuck do I do now!?”

Sera hadn’t mean to raise her voice - okay, she hadn’t meant to scream - but it made no sense just how much her existence did make sense. She had felt alone before when she left her family, but now she didn’t even have her two saviors to talk to, and their deaths were behind her eyelids, haunting her. For the first time in her life, she was utterly alone and hunted.

+roguenobility

[silvercrows]

+sunderandkeening

Man, people are flooding in tonight.

Sera wasn’t working, but her blind sister couldn’t possibly keep up with the crowd even if she had super vision, super strength, and was seven feet tall. So, lounging in a chair near the door, Sera took up help when a small female came in the door to her sister’s inn.

“Hey, it’s swamped. I actually half own the place and work here, how may I help you out?”

[silvercrows]

For one of the first times in her life, there were too many emotions and images running through her head to handle well. It was the only possible, feasible, plausible explanation for her life. 

Thank the gods Kami didn’t get it.

“My parents’ bedroom didn’t have a fireplace, not did our family common room. For our own sake, my sister and I had one in our private rooms.” Sera took a shaky breath in and exhaled hard. “I don’t want to be giving myself memories, but I never understood the changes I would see in my mother’s face. I always assumed it was age, stress, fighting with my father, and fighting with me that would give her the odd wrinkles and lines that only tended to be there when she was in a particularly bad mood. I just assumed that was a ‘her’ thing. We ate family meals together, but my mother always cooked and I only ever saw her nibble on food. She called it a ‘proper’ thing when I was little. It was proper for a mother to cook all of the food and not eat herself so as to make sure her family had an ample supply of food during dinner. I just assumed she ate while she was in the kitchen by herself or after our meal.”

Groaning and leaning back to look up at the sky, the confused daughter said in one exhale, “As you can probably tell, we weren’t the closest family.”

+roguenobility

He waited for her to collect herself, observant of her frustrations all the while.

“I cannot speak for all vampires,” Rowan began to explain, “But… many of us are bound to the same bundle of habits. We prefer to sleep by day, and venture out to feed when the night is darkest. We dwell, naturally, in places steeped in the comfort of shadows. Sources of fire are given a wide and wary berth. Some undead do not eat a single bit of mortal food from the day they are changed to the day they meet their permanent end. I, for one, cannot.”

His hand rose in gesture to his face.

“Oftentimes, we appear far more “human” after we have fed. As the days go by, and our hunger increases, we slip back into our pallid state again. It is… easiest to discern us for what we are, when we are deprived of blood for a long period of time. We appear to be no more than starving corpses, ravening for our next opportunity to gorge ourselves on the living. It is… unsettling to see, to say the least.”

It was his hope that neither of Sera’s parents had fallen to that level of hunger-induced insanity, especially when she was a child… but it was a possibility he couldn’t omit. 

“Looking back, is there anything else about your mother and father that seems odd to you, now that I have told you of these things?”

[silvercrows]

 roguenobility:

Rowan leaned away a bit as the woman’s face turned a roseate shade, allowing her more space.

“You say you did not know a great deal, in regard to your parents,” he pointed out. “Do you sincerely not think it possible for either of them to carry the affliction? Perhaps they did well to hide it from you, on the grounds of not wanting you to learn the truth.”

If only he had something to mask his physical nature – he knew there would come a day when his daughter would piece together what he was. Hopefully, that day would not arrive too soon.

“It is merely something to consider,” he said. “Your sister would not have necessarily had to inherit the same collection of traits, as you.”

Sera let go a huge sigh and hung her head in her hands, gently rubbing her temples to ease her slowly growing headache. Closing her eyes, she searched through her past for hidden signs of deception. 

Her heart grew heavier with each one she found.

“My parents always did their best to keep me away from the world. Books, other people and creatures, even my family history. Before I left, I didn’t know any of it. I still don’t know anything about my family and I haven’t found an opportunity to do much research into the world. Survive or don’t, right? Heh. Doesn’t leave much room for studying. What characteristics would be tell-tale and standout for a vampire?” She had an idea of which parent could have damned her, but she wanted more information before making any assumptions.

Sera wasn’t the type to lie to herself, but her heart that knew the truth was too sad to let her know quite yet. She had to know it with her head before her heart.

+roguenobility

[silvercrows]

+dragonbloodpirate

Again, Sera was working the inn. What’s new? It was becoming a weekly occurrence for her. What wasn’t such a weekly occurrence was the oddly clothed guest that walked in. 

With her head cocked to the side in not-so-hidden curiosity, Sera called out to him, “Hi, welcome to the inn. How may I help you today?”

[silvercrows]

+wayoftheold

Kami wasn’t feeling too well, so Sera took over the inn while she rested. Whenever she had to tend, she tried to be as smooth and welcoming as Kami, but knew that she usually fell just short of awkward.

“Welcome, how may I help you today?”

[silvercrows]

“That makes sense. I didn’t know if it was some kind of venom that normally caused a change, but I kind of suspected so. Good to actually be sure now.”

Sera really wanted to ask why Navalli wasn’t like other vampires like she said, but had a weird gut feeling that she shouldn’t push the topic right now.

Anyways, she was getting some answers, and her selfish side was too ecstatic to divert. It had always been a fault of hers.

 “I’ve had this nagging thought over the years as I’ve watched my mate grow up and age. She knows nothing of my... extracurricular activities. It hurts me inside to think that I might, maybe, have the power to keep her with me and keep her from dying. However, I can’t hurt her and I can’t subject her to something that could possibly be a terrible life. I don’t know entirely know why I’m telling you this, maybe just to justify why I asked the question in the first place. When I really think about it, I don’t even know if I’m going to live forever. I just hopefully wish that sometimes, things can stay really good. Gods know that isn’t what will happen though. I learned that a long time ago. I made a life for myself, and I won’t ask anybody to shape their life to a plan that I might like. It’s good to know that it could be a possibility though, just in case. Just to be careful.”

Sera sighed and lounged in her perch. A soft chuckle bubbled from her chest as she remembered the other comment her vampire companion had made.

“Also, I very much appreciate that you aren’t making a meal of me. It’s probably hypocritical of me to say this, but I don’t particularly want to be eaten.”

+Silvercrows (Serafine)

[silvercrows]

Stricken. Dumbfounded. 

Those were the only words that could explain how Sera felt when she heard the vampire lord say “genetic”. 

Her cheeks flushed dark red and her eyebrows seemed to glue themselves together as she stumbled for words.

“Genetic? As in I got this from my parents? I never saw any suggestion of that from either of them. Would it just be from one? It must be, or else I would have been born a full vampire, right? I had a very odd childhood, my parents weren’t exactly... kind or present. I never knew much about them, but vampire? That’s... that’s entirely new to me. Nothing has ever showed in my sister, she’s never had any thoughts or tendencies of this nature.”

Slowly, pieces of Sera’s traumatic past came together to make the notion less insane. Could it be possible? It was an answer she could get if her parents happened to still be alive and she could find them. The seed of thought, suspicion, and doubt had now been placed in her mind. 

The clawing question now was, would she ever find out?

+roguenobility

“Molag Bal,” Rowan explained. “The creator of all vampires? The dread father of us all. You have not heard his name? He is the lord of domination… and virulent cruelty against mankind.”

The vampire lord took his chin in hand, thinking good and hard as he thumbed his ginger stubble. “I do not know what could have happened,” he admitted, eyes distant as he focused them toward the ground. “But there must have been another’s hand at play, mustn’t there? It makes no sense to me, otherwise.”

An idea sprung to life in his thoughts, blooming quickly.

“Lass,” he said, catching her gaze. “Do you think the manifestation of your curse could be… genetic?”

[silvercrows]

“It’s nice to know that, if I really needed to, I could get by on animals. I’ve, honestly, been too afraid to try it.” Sera got comfortable on the branch Navalli indicated. 

Weird how safe, comfortable, and at peace she felt as high up as she was.

“I know I’ve been asking a ton of questions, and it’s probably grinding on your nerves. I just have one more though... It’s another thing that’s been bothering me but I’ve never wanted to test, partially because all of the people that I do feed from all deserve to die. But... what would happen if I fed from a human but then stopped before they lost so much blood they would die? I know the answer could possibly be different for me personally since I’m, well, different, but forget that. I suppose I should have phrased the question differently. What would happen if you did that?”

+Silvercrows (Serafine)

[silvercrows]

“Yes and no. I almost always come this way to hunt, but this is a little bit further out than I normally go. I have gotten a curious itch to expand my exploration and get to know my forest better than I currently do. I’ve come upon a large handful of bandit camps in the past, but it has always been by convenience. I basically just wander and explore until I find something that can lead me to a meal, or I just find one served to me on a silver platter.”

Even as she spoke, it didn’t slip her mind how frightening yet exhilarating her current altitude was.

“I’ve never actually fed on animals, I’ve never had the heart. I worship this forest and all of the innocent little creatures that live in it. The bandits and thieves I feed off of have all done things to deserve death. The little animals, however, have not. I know it’s a bigger picture and part of the food chain, and I don’t condemn you for feeding off of them, but I’ve just never been able to bring myself to do so. Is there any big difference?” 

+Silvercrows (Serafine)

[silvercrows]

Sera tensed almost unconsciously as she felt the same from the stranger.

“Very well. May I inquire as to your intentions in this neck of the woods? It’s not often such a battle-ready creature walks this path without malice.”

She didn’t know what she was hoping to hear, but something in her needed to be convinced that she wasn’t going to cause problems with her family that resided not far away. However, if she did mean harm, Sera also needed to figure out a way to find out if she could get away with killing her without anybody noticing...

Enough, Sera.

Teleri’s voice in her head is always what encouraged her to give any creature the benefit of the doubt. Directing all of her thoughts from internal babble back to the beating heart in question, Sera tried to hope for the best.

+uthgerdofwhiterun

Uthgerd glanced down at the bounty letter in her hands as she continued to walk. Another Forsworn bounty from Kanna…but Markarth always paid well for getting rid of them. Or, whatever ones you could find and survive the fight with. She sighed and folded the letter back up, placing it back into the small pack tied to her belt.

If nothing else, she’d get a few free drinks and an hour or so of companionship out of the younger woman once she was done fighting her way through fur-clad, kilt wearing terrorists. However, before her thoughts to wander too much farther into her downtime in The Reach an Altmer dropped from the tree she was walking under.

She stopped in her tracks, one of her hands immediately going to the hilt of her sword and gripping it tightly. Even if the womer wasn’t attacking, randomly dropping out of trees wasn’t something Uthgerd was going to just take without putting her guard up. She was going to be prepared for the worst.

“I’m good…”

[silvercrows]

Sera shrugged, partly to brush off some of her own disappointment.

Right when she thought she was starting to understand...

“Prince? Bal? I was never introduced to such a creature with that name or,” Sera paused to find a hopefully neutral term, “title. What would he have to do? There were other people around, but I can’t remember any more specifics. I was pretty out of it for a couple of days. What would have happened, do you think?”

+roguenobility

The lord’s countenance was grim.

“I am woefully sorry to tell you this, lass, but your story does not even make the slightest amount of sense to me,” Rowan answered, his tone bearing quite a hefty edge of frustration. “Usually, when a person is born to any manner of vampirism, it is done so by the will and power of a second vampire… a sire. And yet, you were all alone, with nothing but the sheer catalyst of hunger to spur the change. There was no influence of an older one to set that change in motion.” 

He set his jaw firmly in place, grinding his teeth as he tried to piece together the mystery that was Serafine’s condition. He couldn’t walk away from this; if it was true that there had been no other hand at play in the workings of her metamorphosis, it could mean there was a chance that however the magic she’d told him about came into existence through hunger, it could find a way to manifest in other mortals, as well.

Couldn’t it?

He growled quietly. “I do not understand how that could be. The children of Molag Bal – whether willful and obedient, or rebellious and full of spite �� are all given their immortality, their thirst for the flowing lifeblood of the living, through the actions of another immortal. In all my one-hundred-and-thirty-seven years of life, you are the first exception to the rule that I have ever seen.”

A flash of sudden realization passed over his eyes.

“Unless…” he theorized, “Unless the Prince of Domination himself had some part to play in the creation of your plight.”

[silvercrows]

Send me “ღ” and I’ll generate one of the following.

If the number is not good or apropriate for our charecter I’ll roll again.

1. My charecter will hug yours.

2.My charecter will invite yours to dance.

3. My charecter will text yours in the morning.

4. My charecter will text yours in the evening.

5. My charecter will kiss your cheek.

6. My charecter will kiss a scratch/cut/bump on your body.

7. My charecter will be caught wearing something of yours.

8. My charecter will cook something for you.

9. My character will be caught getting dressed.

10. My character will be caught getting undressed.

11. My character will watch a movie with yours.

12. My character will learn with yours.

13. My character will fight with yours.

14. My character will train with your’s.

15. My character will tell you something he/she thinks about yours.

16. My character will be caught singing.

16. My cahracter will inviting yours to lunch.

17. My cahracter will invite yours to diner.

18. My character will wake yours up in the morning.

19. My character will be caught thinking outloud about yours.

20. My character will crawl up in bed with yours.

[silvercrows]

+uthgerdofwhiterun

Sera’s new found love for climbing trees found her lounging on a high branch staring down at the ground, listening for anything to come by that she could prey on. It had been a while since she hunted (or what felt like a while) and was closely monitoring the silence of the forest, marred only by the wind in the trees. 

It was moments like these when she considered that she really needed another friend besides her mate and her sister to spend time with and alleviate boredom. However, she knew why that was unlikely.

Her train of thought snapped back to reality as her ears picked up the sound of footsteps making their way across the forest floor towards her tree. Slowly and silently she climbed down to lower branches that she could jump off of without hurting herself badly. She was shocked to see an armor-clad female walking below her - Sera definitely expected a male piece of scum dressed in mismatched rags and riches.

Curious but still hungry and on guard, she leaped down from the branches and stared at the newcomer with a mixture of curiosity, hunger, and hostility. She looked like a fighter, a warrior, and Sera wasn’t comfortable with that in her home forest.

“May I help you?”

[silvercrows]

Sera found herself actually pouting a little bit on the inside.

She was nowhere near as strong as Navalli, nor did she have any idea how she hadn’t before thought to hunt with the height advantage. 

Using every ounce of muscle strength so Navalli didn’t see her as completely weak, she let the vampire assist her into the tree. “I’ve actually never considered that before. I’ve always been the type to creep around bushes and hide firmly on the ground to hunt.” Sera paused. “This is completely off topic, but the question just occurred to me. Why were you here in these woods? Were you hunting or...?”

+Silvercrows (Serafine)