He remained with her long after she had slept, one hand smoothing her hair, one wrapped around her shoulder.. a blanket separating them to keep the warmth. Even flushed with her blood as he was now, he knew it would not last long and she would need the heat she still held..
He sat in the bed her head resting in his lap as he stared across the darkness of the room, his mind drifting.. It had been so many years since he had done anymore then feed upon any of them.. so very long since any had caught more then his most passing attention and yet here was this girl.. barely more then a child in many ways.. and he could not concede to honour his own plan to let her go..
His fingers traced her cheek the soft murmur slipping her lips as he watched her draw slow breaths.. Beautiful? Doubtless.. but many were, this in and of itself was insufficient.. It was the strength of will, the strange intangible quality that allowed her to refuse him, that and her questions.. it was these things that set her aside.. Even present fear still she wished to know.
She had spoken of what he wished.. and he had said it was more than just her blood.. more than just sustenance.. But how do you explain that after so long.. the greatest terror one could face was another day of solitude.. how do you explain that at the end of it.. even as you walked from all you knew, to find your own way.. that often you miss them.. Both families.. the one you left in life, and the one that turned you out in death..
And yet what could he hope to achieve with this.. what could be settled.. he knew the answer, and he hadn’t wished to risk it when faced with chance before.. how could this be any different.. in fact, could it not be worse? Loathe to admit it, but he had spoken true, absent intent when he had said he needed her.. had to have her..
It had almost been too long, too long killing and feeding, with no connection, no remorse.. no empathy for anything.. He knew what lay that road, had almost seen it become once, and always thought those weak enough to succumb deserving of what awaited them.. and yet the road he was walked ran into that at the end. The irony of it was nearly enough to make him laugh, but he stifled it, instead turning his gaze back to her sleeping form.
At once the feeling washed over him once more, the slow peace he could not find for himself.. the one that eluded him endlessly and yet lay sleeping in his lap in the form of this beautiful oddity of a mortal.. He felt his own lids grow heavy but fought it off.. he was not of the habit of sleeping, absent proper protections and so since his return to this land sleep had remained absent. But now.. with her, maybe there might be some purpose to seeking life more valued then simply moving between places in which to kill.. maybe there was some semblance of something beyond, endless existence..
Maybe there might yet be life.. or at the least, some vague recollection of it..
