freosan

I am not all that good with words.

Last night, I may have killed someone. This is not unusual. I only wish I had not, which is… let me start again. I am not good with words.

Last night, I woke up early, just after darkup. I am no kind of early riser so I was surprised to see the last rays of sunlight; I suppose I could stay awake in daytime, now.

It is, I have noticed, much easier to see in bright light than in darkness, but I still retain some fear, even after being exposed for hours. Light is dangerous – was dangerous.

Forgive me. But it is as if you, tied to the ground all your life, were suddenly given the power to walk on air – though it were as solid as earth, you would still fear that moment of stepping off the mountainside. Though you may have always felt the terrible draw of the leap. Though you may look upon this as the curse that finally, irrevocably deprives you of knowing what falling feels like.

I woke early, and looked ‘round, and lit the candle-lantern which has become my constant companion; nothing was there to have woken me. As well I strained to hear, but nothing was close by, though I can hardly hear so much as a footstep.

I stood, checked by the windows, in case, took a glance at the big clock, which read fifteen minutes to eight, with the speed of time at six seconds per second; fairly fast, though not so fast as the time I was born in – but I cannot tell these things now.

It is a curse, but I would not feel it if only I had never been so… ah, that is another digression. Forgive me.

The timing made me nervous, and I was still uneasy from having seen the sun; I dressed quickly and without care and perhaps my clothing was less modest than expected in this area, in this time. What of it? It is surely no woman’s fault what she chooses to wear, when the country around is so capricious in its ideals. I cannot imagine how one is expected to follow.

When I left, on my way down to the nearest night-open shop – and there are precious few of those that sell food worth eating – I passed a few women who eyed me with undisguised scorn. I eyed them directly back, with, I like to think, a certain amount of aristocratic chill, and of course my smile has always frightened that sort. I went unmolested until I turned down an alley, a common shortcut.

It was then that I realized, in my earlier forced nonchalance, I had left my lantern burning on my window; and also, that there was no other light down this alley. Well, again, what of it? I had nothing to fear there.

I am still strong, as I compare, though not nearly a fraction of what I once was, and still fast and light and agile, though I feel clumsy as a kitten some times, and when I am attacked, I still have the same instincts.

When the man put his hand on my shoulder, with obvious immoral intent, I did not react. I have some control. When he attempted to reach inside my collar, I pushed his hand away. This did not deter him, and neither did my smile; when he pushed me against a wall, anger in his aspect, I extended my hand quickly and drove my fingers into his throat.

Blood. Oh great dragon. Warm, rich, red velvet blood, covering him, and myself, and my hands – I did as anyone would and drank. Deeply. Though the taste was no deeper than iron and salt, and he still jerked and twitched in my hands, I had not tasted of it in months and it was as sweet and good as a pure maiden’s. I drank until the wound stopped bleeding and dropped the body on the ground. I licked what remained from my hands and leaned back against the wall, deeply satisfied. For a few moments.

My body betrayed me as it so often does these days. I fell to the ground, heaving, and though I tried my hardest I could not keep from vomiting everything I had drunk – everything I had ever drunk, or so it felt. The blood, now mixed with bile and as worthless and lifeless as water, soaked into the ground.

I do not remember how I left or how I went back to the hopeless little cell I called home or how the women who’d scorned me earlier reacted now; I was in shock, I believe. Blood all over me and dirt, and I had no way to wash, and I would not have cared but a month ago. I was not sure I cared now, but I did not sleep that day.

I shall probably never again invent a new twist on anything. Ah well. Enjoy the vampirism.

“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t go out here at night.”

Annas sighs and closes the curtain, looking back at Maria as the shaft of moonlight disappears. “I’ll be all right. I’m not so marked that anyone will notice…”

“It’s not even that. This town gets dangerous after darkup, especially…” she stops; it’s hard for her to say it, even after Annas has told her so many times that,

“It’s Darks, Maria. You may as well learn to use the word. And of course it’s that; what else would it be?” Annas leans against the windowframe, pushing back into the curtains.

It’s dark in here except for the dying fire and the two candles on the mantel; though the moon is bright, the curtains are velvet and the room is done in ebony and dark brick.

In the daylight, it’s a rundown place, full of cobwebs and termite holes and the scuff marks and dirt of age. In the dark, it suits Maria immensely.

“I just can’t see how you can say that about yourself. I mean, you’re less dark, I guess, now, than you were before you were…” Annas can guess that she’s twisting her fingers, a common nervous habit of hers.

“Turned, Maria. And no, I’m not, really. I can’t see you right now, you know that?” Maria’s gasp is distressing, and Annas knows how she feels. It had been a struggle to admit that about herself, and she has the stubbed toes and skinned knees to prove it.

“You can’t see in the dark?” Maria asks, and Annas nods – Maria can still see her, at least.

“But I tried yesterday – I can see in the daytime. It didn’t even hurt, that much,” she says, remembering the feeling of sun on her face. She’d never felt that much warmth, or seen that much light all at once, before, and it’d been absolutely terrifying, but, well…

“You went out in the sun?” Maria’s appalled tone is what Annas had expected, but it still stings, just a bit. It’s all but blasphemy to talk about daywalking.

“Yeah. It, you know, it wasn’t all that bad.” She pushes further into the curtains, letting them cover her more completely. The thick velvet – the only thing in this part of the house that’s new, because true blackout curtains are a necessary part of life – was comfortable this time last week. Now it feels suffocating, which is a new and unpleasant experience.

Maria’s crossed the room in less than the time it takes to blink and is running her hands over Annas’s arms and face. “Are you sure you’re not injured? No burns?” Maria’s father died from sun exposure, so Annas isn’t surprised that she’s worried, but she doesn’t need to worry about that. Not anymore.

“I’m all right. That, at least, heals fast. But it leaves my skin darker – I guess that’s where we got the name,” she says.

Maria’s hands are cold on hers, which she’s never noticed before, and Maria is most likely just as shocked by how warm Annas is. Her hands, almost of their own accord, move to Annas’s wrists, then her throat, and finally come to rest over her heart.

“It’s beating. You have a heartbeat. But that means you’re not…” she doesn’t finish the sentence, so Annas does it for her.

“Not dead. I know. I’m alive now. Like bait. That’s what Darks are – bait that used to be vampire. That’s what I am.” It’s the first time she’s actually said it, and it’s not quite the release she’d hoped it would be.

Annas has always been stronger than Maria, but now her friend has her wrists in what feels like an unbreakable grip. “Annas, you shouldn’t have come here,” she says, her voice lower and closer than Annas had hoped.

“Just because I’m alive doesn’t mean you have to eat me,” she says, and hopes to high heaven she’s telling the truth.

Maria shakes her head and steps back. “You’re absolutely right, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just so weird. Who else knows?”

“Just you and my parents,” Annas says. “I’m going to have to leave – I can’t stay on this rock. There’s too many of us – of you – and not enough bait for me to stay alive.”

“So if you die again, you stay that way? Blood won’t bring you back?”

Annas shakes her head, her thumb pressing into the brand-new pulse point on her wrist. “Nope. I have to make the stuff myself now, I gather. So if that process stops, so do I.”

“And there’s no way to turn you back.”

“None whatsoever. Darksblood is powerful stuff.” She’s done so much research, but there really is no way to turn a Dark back into what she was before.

“Where are you going to go?” Maria is farther away now, probably sitting on the couch, trying to get away from the smell of Annas’s blood.

Annas shrugs. “I thought maybe Yigeron? There’s enough people in and out of there that I won’t be too stand-out, at least.” She would’ve been a week ago, because the children of the Dragon all have beauty and grace beyond any other people – and she is noticing that so much more these days, with her clumsy living reflexes and her useless eyes – but now she’s boring by anyone’s standards, and if she can stop tripping over herself she won’t attract any attention.

“Yigeron’s tropical, isn’t it? You’ll be… oh, I guess you won’t. Sorry.”

Yeah, she’ll be better off away from here. “I’m going now. I promise not to get eaten on the way to the dock,” she says. She wants to be there before darkdown so she can get on the first ship leaving. She just wanted to say goodbye before she left.

“All right, then,” Maria says, slowly. “Goodbye, then. I guess.”

“Yeah, that’s it. ‘Bye. I’ll come back to visit sometime,” she says. She’s lying. She turns the doorknob and takes a step into the street; Maria moves to the door without apparently covering the intervening space.

“I’ll hold you to that. At least write me a letter. Not in blood.” That’s always been kind of an in-joke ever since Annas wrote with her dinner instead of drinking it when she was about twelve.

“Not even someone else’s?” she asks lightly. Maria’s laugh is a touch strained.

“I thought Darks had rules about that,” she says. Annas deliberates.

“Bait does, but I don’t think Darks do,” she says. “We’re a bit off, you see. Think we used to be dragon-children.” Her fangs haven’t changed, and the grin she gives is all the more worrying for coming from an otherwise normal face. “Maybe I’ll send you a nice Mainland boy. I hear they’re delicious down there.”

The laugh this time is genuine, and Annas pulls her cloak around her and sets off.

So it turns out that every time I do a NaNo, I get another universe. Actually every time I hear a new song/read a new book/have an interesting dream/come across a concept/breathe I get another universe, so perhaps this should not come as a total surprise. Anyway, here is a story from a world made up of countries and towns floating in mid-air.

“I’m going on that ship.”

Daven was standing on the dock of Aurn Harbor, looking out to sea without much interest, when Kylie made her pronouncement. He looked up. She was balanced on the dock-ropes, standing on two thin braids of cotton with her skirts hiked up to her knees and her eyes fixed on the mainmast of the Swimming Eagle, the fastest ship to dock in Aurn.

He flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette and eyed her skeptically. “Girls on a ship are bad luck.”

She gave him a look of disgust worthy of the Empress. “I am not a girl. I am a woman. And I’m a better sailor than any three boys you can name.”

“Maybe we know that, but the crew doesn’t, and sailors are a superstitious lot.”

She smirked, then, and looked dangerous, despite her frilly blouse and pink skirts. “It’ll be much worse for them not to have me.”

Daven thought she was probably right.

*****

She was. Daven hasn’t seen her in seven months: twice the amount of time of a standard voyage. The day she left, he sent her off with a kiss and a promise to be waiting. He’s waiting now, on the docks of Aurn Harbor, though the sun’s burning hot and the air’s filled with the stench of a thousand sweating sailors and a thousand thousand dead fish.

The ship she set out on – not the Eagle, despite her protests, but a smaller one called the Areomaid – is supposed to dock today. He doesn’t hold out much hope she’ll actually be on it, but he did promise.

*****

She came to his house three months later, and the first thing she sad to him was, “Told you I was going to sky.”

“You told me you were going on the Eagle.”

Kylie flipped her hands back and forth, signifying the utter irrelevance she attached to that fact. “Eagle, ‘Maid, it’s all the same air. Like my outfit?”

“It’s not very regulation, is it?”

She laughed and turned so he could get a full view. She was wearing an old green skirt, hacked off at the knee, over men’s trousers and leather boots half a size too big for her. Her formerly-white shirt was tucked in with a myriad of leather belts, at least one of which was meant to hold a sword.

“Areomaid isn’t as strict about all that. It’s not like I signed on with those stuffy bastards in the Queen’s Guard – oh, sorry,” she said with a smirk. Daven sighed. She’d been mocking him ever since she’d found out that he’d decided to enlist in the elite corps.

“At least I don’t look like an explosion in a tanner’s, oh great captain,” he drawled.

“Hah! That was almost snappy. Another six weeks and we’ll have you up to clever!” she declared. He rolled his eyes at her.

She sat on his table and looked him in the eye. “Look, I’m leaving tomorrow at sunrise, all right? I want you to be there.” She fidgeted with her hair, as if the effort of being serious was frustrating her.

“I’ll be on the docks by sunrise, then,” he said. She burst forth from her perch and nearly knocked him over hugging him. “Relax, woman! Damn.”

“Psst, Daven. I’ve got a secret,” she whispered in his ear, after she’d gotten him pinned to the bed.

“Oh really?” he asked. “Is this like when you told me there was pirate treasure at the bottom of Lock Lake? Because that was kind of painful.”

“Noooo, it’s actually true this time.” She pushed herself off of him so there was enough distance to look in his eyes. “Want to know?”

He actually kind of did, so he didn’t say anything, just smiled at her until she got impatient.

“I’m going to marry you. When I get back,” she said.

He was stunned momentarily while she giggled at his expression. “You’re right, that was a secret,” he managed, eventually.

“And it’s absolutely true,” she assured him.

“I don’t even get to say yes or no?” he asked, pulling her down to lie beside him again.

“You know what your answer would’ve been,” she said, and he had to admit she was right.

*****

So of course he’d been on the docks, and she’d left him, and he’s been in the Guard for seven months and she’s been at sea, and now he’s snuck out when he’s supposed to be drilling to see her come back. So she’d better be here this time.

He lights another cigarette as some ship he’s never heard of before lands and the crew starts throwing ropes in to dock. He’s not looking for her there, of course, so when he hears…

“Daven! Aren’t ye gonna at least wish me safe landin’?”

…He drops the cigarette and stares.

She’s hanging off the rigging like she was born there, looking down at him. He wouldn’t have recognized her had it not been for the grin. Her hair’s lighter and longer, with beads and bits braided into it; her clothing’s all been replaced with items of stained brocade and water-crushed velvet; her skin’s tanned and worn and she’s gotten a few small scars on her cheek.

But her smile’s the same, and her voice, though accented, is the same, and she jumps off the ship and lands on him like a ton of bricks in exactly the same way as she always has.

He doesn’t fall over this time – the Guard’s taught him that much. He catches her and kisses her instead. She tastes like saltwater and rum.

“I don’t need to if you’re going to land like that,” he tells her. She laughs at him.

“’Ave ye seen my ship? She’s gorgeous, ain’t she?” she asks. “Well, she ain’t mine as yet, but she’s gonna be, you wait.” Halfway through her sentence she slips back into her old voice, which sounds odd coming out of her new face.

“She’s lovely, yes,” Daven says. He knows nothing about ships but this one doesn’t look like much, especially next to the Navy’s Eliza II docked next to it.

“You haven’t got a clue, actually, and she looks ruddy awful,” Kylie informs him with a wink. “We’ll have her shipshape in no time flat, though. She’s the Kelvin, and she’s a lot faster than she looks, S’truth. But look, I’ve got things to do up there – I’ll meet you here in a half hour, right?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, but jumps onto one of the docking ropes and walks up it casually.

He’s got half an hour. Right. He doesn’t think that’s enough time to come to terms with the fact that his fiancée has become a pirate.

*****

“So what got into you, anyway? That Kelvin is no Navy ship. You deserted!” he rails at her, forty-five minutes later, after they’ve gotten back to his house and he’s served her tea. She glowers at him defiantly from over her porcelain cup.

“Yes, I did. What of it? The captain of the Areomaid was disgusting,” she tells him. “Not to mention the crew all thought that there was only one purpose for a woman onboard – the only other women I saw in four months were dock whores. The rations were awful, punishment random and extreme, and eventually, I’d had it.” She puts her cup down and looks up, daring him to comment. He glares right back and takes another drag – he’s been chain-smoking since she landed. Too much stress.

“You’re still not supposed to desert. It’s kind of punishable by death. By hanging. Which is unpleasant. I shouldn’t even be talking to you right now, I should be reporting you –“ he stops at her look, waving his hands “–Not that I’m going to, but you know, these are the things you force me to think about when -”

“All right, then, come off with me and you won’t have to anymore,” she says. He stops midsentence and midflail, stares at her, changes his hand gesture into something that he hopes expresses the level of oh you have got to be kidding me that her offer has induced in him.

She correctly interprets his expression, and says, “Well, you wouldn’t have to worry about what’s going to happen when you go back to camp today,” in the sort of eminently reasonable tone that one would use to talk about, perhaps, choosing class schedules. Not deserting and going pirate.

“I’m not going to sail under a pirate flag! I don’t sail at all, anyway, and stop giving me that smirk,” he says, in response to her sparkling expression. “It’s impossible.”

“You’re no fun, you know that?” she says. “I wanted a pirate wedding.”

He nearly swallows his cigarette.

“That was a joke, Daven. You really wouldn’t?” she says. He knows those puppydog eyes are practiced and they don’t look half so sweet with kohl smeared around them, but dammit, he’s weakening.

“I’m sorry, Kylie, but I’m not marrying a pirate. I’m not becoming a pirate. It’s not what I’d expected when you got back,” he says. It is, of course, the wrong thing to say. She stands up.

“Please accept my deepest apologies for not bein’ the same li’l girl you been pining after,” she says, as sarcastically as he’s ever heard her.

“That’s not what I meant, Kylie, come on,” he says.

“I ain’t gonna ask what you did mean. Don’t much care, either. I’ll be goin’ now,” she says, and matches actions to words by heading for the door.

“Kylie, please. I just can’t, all right? I don’t like you being out there either,” he says. “Marry me and stay here. Stay home. Please.”

She looks at him for a long moment. “Damn you, Daven, you made a liar of me again.”

He grabs her before she can turn fully to the door, because he knows he’ll never see her again if he doesn’t fix this, right now and right here.

“Kylie. I know – I’m being stupid, I’m sorry. Just wait, please? For just a second.” For long enough for him to get this out, so he can get his stupid brain to send the correct words to his stupid mouth.

She pauses and turns back to him, but has her hand on the doorknob and a closed expression on her face.

“All right, I know better than to ask you to stay here, I’m sorry,” he says, yet again. “But – I can’t go either. You know that, right?”

“Aye, I know,” she tells him.

“So I’ll wait for you, okay? Just make sure you come back.”

There’s a long, long moment of silence, where she looks up at him, and he looks down at her, and her eyes go from hard to soft to teary. She blinks, a few times, and shakes her head.

“You know I always have to,” she says, and finally leaves. But not before standing on tiptoes to press her lips to his.