bisclavret's blog: "Writings..."

Title: Curiousity Kills Cats 2
Characters: Marie d'Aquitaine, Virginia Matheson
Time: 22 Jan, Near dawn
Location: Marie's lair, the docks and streets of Crescent Isle
Writer: Dano


Marie d'Aquitaine was furious, but it didn't show. Instead her anger wrapped around her like a long, fridgid cloak as it always did. Her 'daughter' had gone missing again, something the little trollip had been doing frequently, and Marie knew deep inside that it was time for mistress and scion to split. The impending split hurt, and Marie always channelled her hurt into anger.

Marie channelled anything into anger.

She was waiting as her scion of over a century and a half slipped through the door, which clicked softly shut. "And where have we been tonight?" Marie asked with ice dripping off the words.

Virginia knew that tone, her mistress was more than a little miffed. She stood stock still as Marie approached and walked around her slowly. "Hunting," she explained.

"Ah," Marie said, sniffing Virginia's breath, "an alcoholic?"

Virginia stiffened. "A beverage shared with a potential donor."

The older vampress put on a mock pout, "And I had dinner all ready." She held out a severed male member, waving it under the younger woman's nose, "I even saved you a bit." An evil smile crossed her face, "I know how much you love these, would you like it?"

"No," Virginia whispered, then added more softly, "please."

"You know when you awaken where it might be," Marie taunted, feeding from her scions disgust and fear, "or *do* you?"

Virginia knew that Marie could stay awake longer into the day and waken sooner at dusk than she, leaving her dormant and at the mercy of the older vampress. A dozen different possibilities raced through Virginia's mind, all of them having been done to her at one time or another and none of them desirable.  "Please don't," she half whispered.

"Then you will have to sleep somewhere I can't find you, won't you?" Marie said softly. She held a key in the opposite hand as the gruesome trophy. "This is a storage bin with your things in it. Which will my kitten choose?"

There comes a time in every young vampire's life when they must split from their creator. Terror crossed Virginia's face as she realized that her mistress of a century and a half was throwing her out. She hesitated for a second before taking the key and running out the door. Marie laughed at her urgency as the door slammed. "Sleep well, my kitten," she said to the empty space where Virginia had been. Dropping the severed member, forgotten, onto an end table, she turned to her own bed chamber.

As fleeting as the rapidly dissappearing shadows, Virginia ran through the streets seeking both distance from Marie and shelter from the impending sunlight. Several places seemed possible, but finally she found a small burned out cottage. Praying that it had a decent basement, she entered. It took only moments to find a way down and a suitable corner behind a pile of rubbish and the dead central air conditioner.

Protected from the sunlight, and hopefully Marie, Virginia clutched the key tightly and curled into a fetal ball around it. With a couple of soft sobs, she slipped into the dreamless daytime dormancy of her kind- death.

Title: Curiousity Kills Cats 1
Characters: Gavin, George (NPC bartender), Virginia
Time: 21 Jan, Near Midnight
Location: One Eyed Eddies, the docks and streets of Crescent Isle


One Eyed Eddies, a bar right on the waterfront, was quiet for a weekday night. George, the owner and bartender, had a little extra time to mingle and talk with his regulars. One in particular had been more regular lately.

"You go out today?" George asked, inquiring about whether he had taken his boat out on a fishing run. George was really wondering if Gavin would settle the tab he had been running. Gavin was captain and owner of the Glastonbury Tor, a fishing boat that catered to the Crescent Isle tourist trade.

Gavin looked up from his drink. He had switched from the dark rum of the last few nights to Killians Red, a detail that had not gone unnoticed by George. "Yea, first time in days."

"Time heals, glad to have you back with the living." He patted the shorter Celt on the shoulder, "You'll get over her."

"I always do." Gavin smiled back, remembering far more recoveries than his appearance would suggest.

"Don't we all," George replied, walking away. Gavin smiled into the dark red ale, his blue eyes twinkled under his tousled red hair, making him look impish. He finished his drink and dropped an extra couple of dollars on the table, tips from the days run. Stepping into the air of the tropical night, he whistled a little tune as he strolled towards the G'Tor.

The wavelets of the harbor tapped lightly on the old fishing boat, the G'Tor seemed quietly happy to have been out that day. Gavin boarded her, gathered his duffel bag from the little cabin, and stepped back onto the deck. He ran his hand along the gunwale as if stroking a lover. "Thank you for being there, lass, see you in the morning," he said to the boat. The G'Tor seemed to understand. He checked the moorings and headed up the dock towards the flat he knew would be dark and lonely.

***

Virginia lurked in the shadows, as she often did. She was revisiting the boat where she had gotten sick after ambushing a fisherman, a rather disconcerting feeling that she hadn't felt in over a century. It was the second time she had returned, but the last time she hadn't been able to get as close. The movement on board the boat made her slip further into the shadows.

Coming off the boat was the fisherman she had fed from, who should by all rights be dead. She had felt his heart stop. She waited for him to pass, then followed him up the street to a small apartment building. There were only seven units, and the vampress followed her 'prey' to the sixth one and watched him enter.

She watched the closed door for a while, confused and curious. She almost knocked and demanded to know what he was, that he could survive a total drain.

Almost. Virginia was young for a vampress, but she wasn't stupid. Draining a victim was murder.

She got the man's name from the mailbox of number six, G.Draegun. There was another name under it that had been crossed out, which explained to her why he had been sleeping on the boat when she had fed from him. Virginia wandered back to the docks, her mind fitting pieces together. This was the most fun she had experienced in several decades, a mystery.

She returned to his boat, the Glastonbury Tor, thinking it an unusual name for a fishing boat. The vampress wandered around the boat, touching little and disturbing nothing. Finding little to sate her growing curiousity, she headed up the dock to the tavern he had come from, a place called One Eyed Eddies.

The bar wasn't the kind of place for ladies, it was rather rough and looked seedy, but in spite of her appearance Virginia was no lady. She stepped through the door and looked around.

Fishing nets hung on the walls as decoration, and the tables were hatch covers. Thirty years ago it would have passed for a tourist place with a nautical theme. Now it was the real thing, a dockside dive. The few people in the place grew quiet as she entered. Virginia stepped up to the bar and looked at the hand painted price list, surprised to see bloodwine on it. The bartender came over to her. "What'll it be, my lady?" he asked with a heavy, but false, accent.

At first the words didn't come to her. Marie, her mistress, did most of the talking for her. It was a control thing with Marie. Finally she managed to say, "Bloodwine, please."

The bartender's eye raised slightly, but he filled the order and she paid her tab. "And what's a lovely vampress like yourself doing in this dive?" George asked her.

"Looking for a captain I know named Draegun, you know him?" Virginia sipped her drink. The plasma was a little old, but it was warm, sweet, and intoxicating. In her century and a half as a vampress she had rarely imbibed.

George smiled, a little dissappointed. Ah well, Gavin needed a lady worse than himself. Gavin did have a way with the ladies. "Oh, aye, Gavin, good fellow. His boat is docked just down the way, you just missed him."

"Oh, damn," Virginia feinged. She filed the name Gavin away with everything else. "Is he a regular?"

"Oh, yes. More so since his girl left him, but he's recovering," George hinted, hoping that Gavin would appreciate the help.

Virginia smiled, taking care not to display her fangs, and flashed her dark brown eyes at the bartender. "Perhaps I too will become a regular."

"I'll have some fresher stock tomorrow night," George said, indicating her drink. "I imagine that's a little gamey."

"A little, but it's not too bad," she replied with a giggle. The vampress finished her wine. "Tomorrow night, then."

"Right after dusk," he offered.

"Thank you." Virginia winked, turned, and slipped into the night as only a vampire could. George just watched her fluid motions and thought what a lucky man Gavin was.

Title: What Chyld is This?
Characters: Virginia Matheson, Gavin Draegun, mentions Marie d'Aquitaine
Time: Wee hours of Monday morning, January 17, 2005
Location: The docks of Crescent Cove, and aboard the fishing boat 'Glastonbury Tor'
Writers: Dano


Virginia stopped in the shadows at the corner where the alley met the main street. The breeze off the water was warm and moist, speaking to her of distant rains. She could hear the dark waves lapping against the quay and the creaking of the fishing boats against their moorings. From somewhere down the docks she heard distant singing and sounds of revelry in the night. If she waited here in the gloom, prey was sure to pass by sooner or later. Her thoughts drifted to Marie and the prey she was toying with tonight.

Her mistress, the master vampire that had created her, had sent her out earlier in the evening to bring back 'dinner and a show'. To Marie this meant a pretty, naive young man to torture and eventually feed from. The man would not survive his ordeal. His screams still echoed in Virginia's head, mixed with countless others.

Virginia herself was not outside of her mistress's cruelity. Although she had to feed, Virginia didn't feel the need to toy with a victim first. Marie knew this, and used it to torment the younger vampress. Her absence tonight would not go unpunished, and she fully expected to awaken tomorrow at dusk with some dismembered part of tonight's victim violating her. It had happened before. Over a century and a half she had suffered everything Maries twisted mind could devise.

Virginia sighed softly.

It wasn't long at all before her quarry staggered toward her ambush. He was a fisherman, perhaps a crewman or even a fishing boat captain, and he was quite drunk. She knew the type, they had few family or friends to ask embarrasing questions, and the police were far too busy otherwise. This one was perfect prey. As he neared, Virginia heard him singing. It sounded like an English folk song from her memory, but she couldn't quite make out the words because of his inebriated state. He stopped a few yards from her and did a little stagger, close enough that she could sense the blood rushing through his veins and smell the taint of dark rum.

Virgina suddenly realized he didn't stagger, it was a few steps of a old reel. He wasn't as drunk as he first appeared. His singing began again, to the tune of 'Away in a Manger', but the words were all wrong, and only a few in English. Hunger knawing at her but curiosity piqued, she silently followed him instead of simply ambushing him.

He stopped next to a decrepid fishing boat which had seen better days a long time ago. Since it was far too late, or early, to be going out fishing, Virginia waited for the sound of deep breathing. Her assumption proved right, he was sleeping on his boat tonight.

Her heart was touched with a bit of sadness, and she wondered why this one wasn't home. He didn't seem that poor, perhaps some trouble at home had brought him here. No matter, the dawn would find him gone, and whomever had driven him here would probably blame themself. She smiled at the poetic justice and slipped onboard the boat.

She found him passed out on a small cot in the tiny cabin, the nearly empty bottle beside him. Hopefully the fool had drank enough to deaden her own pains. Virginia brushed aside the coarse red hair and exposed his jugular. With a quick movement from long practice, she sank her fangs deep into the warm flesh. The blood was salty and tart, laced with the potent rum. His heart slowed, and then stopped, as she quenched the hunger that burned within her.

Finished, she looked at him lying there. The people who found him would suspect alcohol poisoning or heart attack, they always did. He had a silly grin left on his face that made her smile. Virginia backed out of the cabin and walked to the gangplank.

A pain struck her in the stomach. At first she thought she was being attacked, but no one was around. She doubled over, attempting to wrap around the pain that now wracked her abdomen. Virginia's whole body began to shake, and she wretched. She hadn't been sick in almost two hundred years, since her change. The sailor's blood was ejected forcefully as she fought to quell the spasms that overwhelmed her.

*What had that fool been drinking!* Finally the spasms stopped and Virginia looked at the brownish green mess on the deck. Upset, disconcerted, and still a little nauseous, she hurried into the safety of the night and her mistress's lair.

***

Gavin awoke long after dawn. Hell, it was long after noon. His head was splitting and he could barely stand he was so weak. The deck swayed lightly as if to torment him. Bracing himself against the bulkhead he stood to face his most sadistic foe; sunlight. A sound left his lips halfway between a moan and a curse as he stepped into the daylight. Funny, he didn't remember being this hung over in quite a while. One look at the deck told him why.

He must have really been sick last night, it looked as if a wyvern had shit on his deck. Moaning softly in sympathy with himself, and glad he didn't remember it, he got out the mops and began swabbing the deck of the Glastonbury Tor.

Title: Starting Late
Characters: Gavin Draegun
Time:  Sunday, January 16, 2005
Location: Gavin's flat, and aboard the fishing boat 'Glastonbury Tor'
Writer: Dano

Gavin looked out across the docks to the blue water beyond. A warm breeze tousled his straggly red hair through the open window. It was another perfect day in paradise. Gulls spun and wheeled through the clear sky, following the outbound fishing boats.

"Shit," he thought, "late again." He downed half a cup of lukewarm coffee and headed for his boat.

At least it wasn't cold outside. He loved the English winter, but the cold had started to seep into his bones the past few decades. His power base, the green things of the earth, faded in winter.At least it did in northern winters, which is why he was here in the Carribbean.

His sandals slapped on the pavement as he reached the dock. A few stragglers, mostly tourists, were sitting around looking for a boat. Eleven tourists, and on just a half cup of cool coffee. At twenty bucks a head it would barely cover expenses. Gavin weighed the two, and opted to go out. It was, after all, the noble way out- it wasn't their fault he had slept late. He thought of the warm brown arms that had twined around him the night before, and smiled to himself.

Gavin stepped lightly aboard the less than beautiful head boat. The Glastonbury Tor needed a fresh coat of paint, and her decks could use a fresh coat of wood as well. He fired up the ancient diesel with a puff of black smoke like a dragon's belch. As the engine idled and warmed loudly, Gavin walked amidships to greet his customers.

The line on the dock was all male, not unusual. Many of them were regular customers, with a few tourists mixed in. There was about twenty five in all, better than he had estimated earlier.

"'Morning, mates," he said to the line of men on the docks, "twenty American for the morning out, and I'll stay out a little into the afternoon for startin' late." Gavin collected the money as they entered with few words, threw off the lines, and went back to the wheelhouse. When they seemed to have sorted themselves out, he pulled slowly from the dock and pointed the G.Tor's bow at the blue Carribbean. It promised to be a fine, albeit late, day.

Much later the G'Tor wended it's way back through her already moored companions. It had been a good run, and the head boat's customers had plenty of catch. Gavin had a reputation for finding fish even on the worst days, and today was no exception, the small keg he used as a tip bowl was generously enhanced. He wished them each a good afternoon and saw to the aging boat's needs.

It was almost dusk when the last of the gear was stowed and Gavin headed for home. The flat was dark as he entered, and he called out, "Allo, luv!" into the darkness, expecting a reply. None came.

He switched on a light and almost immediatly saw the note.

"Dearest," it began, "I'm sorry to leave you this way. You have a way of pulling someone into your semi- dream existence, and when I'm around you I don't want to leave. You have a way of growing into a person, of rooting them to yourself. I will not live as long as you, (how long I wonder, my love? You've never told me.) My life is mortally short. The three years that we spent together are an eyeblink to you, but are almost a tenth of my entire life. I need a family, a home that is permanent to me, and someone to grow old with. Forgive me, my love. I will never forget you, but never for me is different than never for you.
"All my love, Naomi,"

Gavin sighed. Well, it *had* been a good day. If he could have grown old with someone, it would have been with Naomi. He was growing old, but like a noble oak and not a man. Looking around the flat, he decided not to stay there this evening. Perhaps he could numb the emptiness in drink, and sleep the night in the arms of his other mistress, the G'Tor.

Taking his tip money, Gavin headed back to the dock area, and the bar know as One Eye's.

These are things I have written over the years, mostly on 'story boards' (an RPG that tells whole stories, not just interactive snippets). If you are reading these, at least have the courtesy to let me know what you think. I am posting them here as they were written originally, in the preferred format of the board they were posted to. Please show me the respect of acknowledging me if you quote them.

The first set is from a list called 'Crescent Isle' about an island in the Caribbean in an alternate reality much like our own except that vampires, werewolves, magic and such exist.