Post-SHRED PSL: Into the New Night (for @anashthetic)

[onlyonerose]

It's over. But nobody knows that, not yet. While their sadistic, unseen hosts prepare to do whatever it is they must to end this experiment, a vampire continues to hunt, scrabbling for survival in a body made unfamiliar. Breathing, sleeping, mortal.

Persephone makes sure to test the branches this time (she'd taken a painful, embarrassing fall a few days ago) as she climbs up towards a bird's nest, her claws digging into the bark. There's no way she'll catch the mother, but eggs are edible, right? She doesn't remember how to cook them, but she's fairly sure mortals can eat them.

The mother--cardinals, the nest belongs to cardinals--divebombs her instead, and she catches it, her reflexes still intact. She might be more jubilant about her lucky break if she wasn't still unnerved by her death in the store. Death meant waking up in her coffin again, not that awful, cramped nothingness.

Now it's just survive. Survive so she never has to endure that again.

She lifts the nest and tucks the fresh bird corpse into her winter coat's pocket. Someone had stolen her satchel when she died, so she had to bear its added warmth to carry anything. But she could, at least, take it off when she went to prepare her meal. She takes a shortcut down by subsuming everything into her wolf form and fall-running down the boughs, landing with a grunt and a doggy shake to loosen caught twigs...next to her fellow vampire!

Maybe they were the one who killed her. Maybe they weren't. All she knows is he died, too, and that was an awful experience. Out of a desire to aid her kin, the only kin she's had in months, she reverts and offers the nest.

"Hello again. I found these; do you know how to prepare eggs? I am willing to share."

Comments

[anashthetic]

Ashton's long since beaten their startle reflex into dust, or at least most of it -- one has to, to have an unlife like the one they used to have. All that means here is that instead of any actual surprise, they just turn their head and look at her, unruffled.

Once upon a time he knew how to cook eggs! That was maybe a decade ago. On the list of mortal skills that he's had any reason at all to practice as a dead thing, cooking is rarely one of them. And one might think he'd have gotten more adjusted to actually eating food again here, trapped in Witherd Branch, but he's been trying to do as little of that in human shape as is possible -- so no cooking experiments, not really.

...though there'd be dark circles under his eyes if he wasn't fleshcrafting them away. He's not eating as much as he ought to and he's always been skinny.

"It's been some time since I had reason to," Ashton says, mild, "so I might not remember all that well, but I think I've got some idea." Or more than Persephone does, at least. How hard can it be to make a wild bird's eggs into something vaguely edible?

And if they're sharing, Ash can't get away with poisoning the other woman -- not that she could, she hasn't got the supplies for it, but still always something at the back of her mind.

[onlyonerose]

A decade beats multiple centuries. Persephone had legitimately not remembered half the things mortal bodies needed to do to stay functioning, or at least, not remembered what they felt like. They were so inelegant and wasteful, and the weakness and distraction that came with mortal hunger and thirst was so much worse... Not to mention how one bad judgment during food preparation could cost the body so much.

So it's better to share, especially to someone she feels she owes something, and have some food, than to attempt it and either poison herself or have none. And Ash hasn't refused, so she allows a hint of a smile.

"I have a pot at my shelter. Shall I meet you with it by the cooking drum, or do you have something you would like to use?"

For all her cluelessness on mortal needs, she at least knows better than to put a bird's nest on a fire. That's just common sense.

[anashthetic]

There are a few advantages to being so relatively recently-dead, every now and again. Not many -- never many -- but some. In some uncomfortable twist of fate, his cannibalistic hungers might have actually made him better suited for this situation than the average vampire: in a normal scenario, he eats, and he eats daily. Whether or not he wants to, it's going to happen, because he knows what'll happen if he doesn't.

The problem is that he's also been eating raw meat daily for several years, so the concept of eating anything solid that's not meat or the smallest bites of ration bars is unbearable. Pros and cons, and all that.

Persephone's flicker of a smile is not returned. All Ashton's face displays is that faintly curious neutrality that they default to whenever they're not smiling. "How far is your haven from that location?"

[onlyonerose]

She has to pause to think about it, her mind foggy with hunger and the uncontrollable swirl of adrenaline. It would take her about two hours, starting at one end of the town, to run straight to the other in wolf form. She made it to the store with about ten minutes to spare, so...

Oh, but where were they now, exactly? She'd just trailed this bird back to its nest without paying attention.

"If I kept wolf shape, the entire trip would...I believe...take less than an hour."

There. Surely the trip to the graveyard, then to the apartments where Devero set up the cooking barrel, would not total even half the length of the dome above them.

sorry about the wait, life ate me alive;;

[anashthetic]

He glances up at the sky, judging the time of night -- yes, that should be manageable. Maybe it'll take a little more blood than he was aiming to burn tonight if he wants to get there at his maximum pace, but sometimes that's just how it goes!

"Then I'll meet you at the drum." Then there's the ghost of a smile. "And if you're not there by sunrise, I'll assume you've met a terrible fate and look for you tomorrow night."

That's fine, it's slowing me down too

[onlyonerose]

It's met by a soft huff of laughter. The world is a dangerous place, even hers, where she holds considerably more agency. She's sure if another vampire rose with her they'd share similar jests.

"At least you won't want for shelter if I keep you waiting that long. I'll see you soon."

The nest and eggs vanish into the swirling shadow that carries her from vampire to wolf, and she races off.

It's an uneventful run; she knows to stay clear of the lake's shore and other animals either flee from or ignore her. There's an odd flash above as she's running towards the drum, though, a flicker and a ripple of light pulsing through the dome that imprisons them.

She skids to a stop before the drum, where Ashton hopefully still waits, and returns to her natural state, the eggs and nest in one hand and a cooking pot in the other. She doesn't immediately offer either, though, glancing up again at the sky--the dome still flickers and distorts--then looks back to the other vampire, or scans the shadows and apartment doorways for signs of him if she arrived alone. As if to ask if they're both seeing the same thing.

She doesn't know why she immediately has that distrust of her own sight, but she's a little too worried about what they're up to now that she doesn't examine it.

[anashthetic]

Ashton's not waiting quite at the drum, though he's on a very nearby roof watcjing the sky, so it's not as if he's gone particularly far. When she spots Persephone arriving she hops down from the roof's lip to the street lightly, doesn't stumble (through valiant effort; at the moment she's a little anemic, but there's not a lot she can do to improve that besides minimize use of her powers for a few days.)

"It's never done that before," he says, in a tone that's not quite a question, "has it."

[onlyonerose]

She shakes her head no and looks up to watch it again, cautiously transfixed by the ghostly ripples created by the dome's activity, like they're underwater. And now it is definitely fading, its wavering form fainter and fainter.

"It bodes ill." She lowers her gaze from the sky once more. "Either something has gone wrong, or this is a trick."

If they go to the edge, will there be a trap waiting for them? If not, will they find shelter from the sun outside the dome? If there are no printers, are they not bound here even without their walls?

But if there is stone, and if there are animals, she can build a shelter. She can build waygates--she'd have to build and feed a second Heart in the city to do it, but...

"I'm willing to take the chance, however. Do you think we have time to travel to the edge before dawn?"

[anashthetic]

"If we fail to reach it, as long as we have access to the earth I can find shelter for myself regardless." It'll use too much blood, they're using up too much of it, but perhaps the next few days they can try to take it easy with discipline usage.

And a sigh. "...and if we wait, it may well have been repaired by next evening."

[onlyonerose]

"You have a burrowing form? How fortunate. I don't, but I can fend for myself." It wouldn't be the first time she's had to spend a day moving around a tree trunk to stay in its shadow like some kind of inverse cat.

But something has shifted, somewhat. Now that there's a chance of escape, maybe? A chance to regain some power, some standing, agency, a confidence has started to slip into her voice that has been absent this long month of scavenging and learning this pseudo-mortality. Despite the clear wariness in the way she watches the last shimmering vestige of the shield above fade, she stands a little taller.

"We should go, then."

Her pot and their food (and the nest that will, morbidly enough, have to serve as kindling if they do succeed in leaving) vanish once more under her wolf form's wild fur, and she waits for Ashton to join her before taking off for the edge of their prison.

With them both now occupying breathing bodies, there's no way to ignore the way the air now tastes and feels flat, somehow, like something has drained from it.

[anashthetic]

"I don't, no." They have their ways, though.

There's nothing returned to Ashton, restored to them, with this potential chance; they're not even really letting themself actively hope for anything to be different, no matter what they say. What are the odds it's not a fucking trick? What are the odds that even if they step out of here, it's just into some other scheme made by some other masters, some new form of suffering and some new changes to their godforsaken body very much against their will?

They're a little slower than usual on four legs, even when accounting for the prosthetic, not that Persephone's ever known them any other way. A few times they stumble. This is the problem with a living body, or a half-living body: it gets so tetchy when it doesn't have the blood volume it thinks it ought to, and even though a wolf needs less blood than a human four legs is still harder to coordinate than two when the hypovolemia's starting to kick in.

Something is different, and that much is undeniable. Exactly how much different it is -- that's starting to show its face. Ash doesn't have the right sort of senses to feel it out, and not for the first time they wish they did.

[onlyonerose]

At first, she slows for Ashton.

Then, she slows because she's stumbling, too.

The drained air doesn't perfuse the blood quite as well, doesn't invigorate the brain.

Still, she won't let herself give up. She could build something safe out here. The animals go here. She could build. She could...

She steps, staggering on earth and grass. Earth and grass.

On void.

When she collapses, it feels like she falls through the ground, though if Ashton hangs onto consciousness, they'll see no such thing. They won't be far behind her, though.

And when the numb falling ends, the air is verdant, alive. Moonlight peeks through a pine forest's canopy, and they'll find, at last, their senses and strengths are restored.

And the soil itself runs thick with ancient, powerful vampiric blood.

[anashthetic]

Dimensional travel is harsh on a body and soul, even one that was remade the first time through a trip like this, but Ashton is... hardy. Adaptable. They've made themself that way, physically, and on the mental side - that's not important, probably. If they're panicking a little when consciousness returns, they're going to ignore it and pretend they're not! This is probably fine.

This is more green than they've seen in months. They should - find shelter, find a meal, find - something - but they're almost dazed by how different they feel. They don't even get up or look around; just lie there taking it in, ears swiveling, tongue lolling slightly.

What if this is another trick? What if this is another trap? What if what if what if what if. The idea is paralyzing. They can't bring themself to move.

[onlyonerose]

Persephone rights herself slowly, then dismisses her wolf form as she takes in the sight of the familiar forest canopy.

The sound and smell of a distant hunt, wolf howls, a screaming deer, and the tantalizing tang of blood on the breeze. A rat scurrying into deeper cover in the brush cradled in a tree’s roots.

Home.

She allows herself to be taken by it at first, and then she comes to the same conclusion Ashton did.

What if they just want to watch her suffering when they take it away?

If that’s the case…

She eyes the other vampire on the ground.

“If they mean to tempt us, surely we see something different. Tell me, what do you see?”

[anashthetic]

"A forest. Pine. Spring or summertime, perhaps." There's none of their frequent teasing or playfulness to be found here, only a cold directness, almost -- almost distracted. "Thick grass underfoot, and the moon distantly visible through the foliage overhead."

They could not be reasonable about this if they let themself process it in full. So they won't. Their own capability for function must always be their priority; it sure as hell isn't going to be anyone else's.

[onlyonerose]

“So we see alike. Unless you have some reason to long for this particular forest, we are truly… I am home. Why both of us, though?”

She doesn’t sound at all disappointed, though she should probably be warier of having another vampire around.

She suddenly realizes something--she is making herself breathe. Persephone exhales, and keeps her lungs empty. Seconds pass. They do not demand to be refilled.

She breathes in again to speak. “Are we…restored?” Freed? she doesn’t quite dare to add.

[anashthetic]

"If you fell through -- I was with you. We have no idea how precise the process they brought us there with was. This may simply be it in reverse."

Are we... restored?

--the hunger as it was is gone. They don't - that awful constant gnawing desperation to bite and tear and swallow, hungry as they'd ever been and nothing that'd ever satiate it, is gone.

...which means - if they've been reverted to their prior existential states- she needs to find a human population. Preferably several. Or within the week she'll be too damaged to move and too delirious from pain to strategize.

Not ideal.

"Were there things you could no longer do, as a prisoner there, that you once could?"

[onlyonerose]

"Nothing I was able to attempt."

She'd been trying to collect enough stone for a Heart, but was getting little of use from the gravestones, and her body required more fuel, more frequently. She didn't know if they'd taken that, or if their soil--she can smell the difference now, the ancient blood in the roots of everything that wasn't in the ground of Witherd Branch--would even interact with one properly.

Well, there was one thing neither of them could do there.

Her blood reserves were long gone. Replaced in the ghost town with something that mimicked living blood, made in dead marrow and pushed through a heart forced to beat.

It lingered weak and useless in her veins. Preferable to being starved, but that was about it.

"We could find prey. If their hold on us is gone, we should be able to feed properly."