#but yeah entropy + executive dysfunction + an immortal life would be hell

[bastart13]

Out of curiosity, what's some character writing you've done that you're quite proud of?

Ooh now this was seriously difficult to answer because I write a lot of short, context-less fics or OC snippets but I did manage to find this script I wrote at like 3am one night.

It was me heavily projecting my depression and struggles with executive dysfunction onto immortal vampires.

How easy do you think it would be to sleep for centuries?

Eiliwedd’s bones audibly creak as she settles into her chair and sets her crutches by the side. The moment she sits down, all pretence of life leaves her.

She stills, cold and stiff as a statue of flesh. Her eyes stare out unblinking into nothingness. She takes no breath and her heart doesn’t beat.

I cock my head at her. I’ve never known a vampire to look so... brittle.

She was given every strength in her immortal body to hunt endlessly and still when I saw her, I can’t help but think I could somehow outpace her.

H: “Eiliwedd?”

The grandfather clock ticks away in the corner of the room.

E: “Yes, Hannah?”

Even when she speaks, her body is still as a corpse.

H: “Were you disabled before your rebirth?”

E: “Are my crutches so odd?”

H: “I’ve never met a vampire who’d need them unless they could barely walk as a human.”

A soft sound escapes her. I’d almost describe it as a laugh if it wasn’t so weak.

E: “No. I was able.”

I lean forward in my chair, gently resting my head on my hand as I observe her.

H: “Then my next question must be obvious. I understand if you don’t want to tell me if it’s painful, but I wanted to at least ask.”

E: “...It is not that sort of pain.”

E: “But it was my weakness.”

H: “Did someone hurt you?”

E: “No...”

E: “Do you understand the covens and masquerades vampires keep?”

I frown.

E: “They’re just whether vampires live in communities or decide to act as humans, aren’t they? Not the most difficult thing in the world.”

E: “And yet it was the most difficult thing I could conceive of.”

E: “To live an immortal life every day spent around others or worse, to attempt to keep up with mortal lives.”

E: “After centuries or even decades. Hundreds and thousands of days spent attempting to live is an exhaustion few can understand.”

E: “I found it too much. I did what anyone does when life tires you: I took a rest.”

E: “I left to my home. I locked the door, lay in my coffin, and slept for months.”

E: “I cannot describe the relief. It was as if I’d spent my whole life surrounded my noise that finally ended.”

E: “...Relief is an addicting thing. I ended up asleep for centuries.”

H: “No one woke you in all that time? A friend? Not even a postman?”

E: “I was woken several times, actually, it was quite annoying.”

E: “First it was a fellow who’d noticed my months-long absence. They dragged the lid off my coffin and I don’t blame them for their confusion.”

E: “However, after a conversation, I simply sent them home and slept again.”

E: “Others tried several more times to wake me, but at the sixth attempt I couldn’t help my anger.”

E: “They were a nuisance. Every step or word was a bother and there they were badgering me for years on end. After they left, I hid myself away so no one would find me.”

E: “It worked. I was alone and at peace for centuries more.”

My eyebrows tense in confusion.

H: “So you cannot walk unaided because you didn’t feed during that time?”

E: “I won’t deny my hunger, but I fed on the animals attracted to my home. They were easy prey.”

E: “...There is danger in ease. In relief. Intoxicating, addicting peace.”

E: “The universe is cruel for entropy. That one cannot simply exist.  That it takes effort to simply maintain a baseline.”

E: “When the weight of air drags your body to the bed of the earth and darkness embraces you whenever you close your eyes.”

E: “It spreads like an oil through you if you let it, and it is so easy to let it continue.”

E: “A peaceful pain is a hell like any other because it lies, and you want to believe it because the alternative is difficult.”

E: “You know it and you hate it.”

E: “You know that every step not taken will be more painful than the last.”

E: “You know it festers within you every moment you let it.”

E: “You know it will trap you in your own mind and you know that is an unkind place to be.”

E: “But you know it doesn’t mean a fucking thing.”