isolt griffin

I'm more alive than I've ever been

When initially Tetradore had insisted that Isolt take herself 'to ground' for the coming dawn, the flame-crowned woman had hardly considered that any manner of restful calm would find her this day... surely after what had transpired, after all that they had endured, even the death-like slumber that was now her custom would be all but unattainable. And yet, mere moments after she had found herself within the private quarters tucked away in Red on the Water's labrynthian bowels, sleep had taken her into its waiting arms. Sleep and the assortment of vivid memories to play upon the stage of her subconscious where dreams had once woven their fantastic tapestries. Vampires, she had discovered quickly in the aftermath of her transformation, were incapable of traipsing beyond the curtain of dreams, their subconscious minds somehow incapable of concocting such superb fantasies from the nothingness of sleep's endless ether. And so Isolt's mind simply plucked at memories from the ever-growing chasm in order to substitute for this deficiency, though this day's offerings were peculiar in their specificity, a clear trend apparent in that they all seemed to feature one very entrancing green-eyed fellow...

Isolt rises from the relative comfort of the small bed in what seems and feels like slow motion, her lithe frame feeling for all the world as if it had somehow accumulated a desert's worth of sand. A cursory gander of herself in the dusty mirror upon the wall gives the youthful vampire momentary pause, the deep violet bruise that had blossomed upon her chest with Risque's undoing remained there still, its veiny fingers outstretched far above the modestly sloping neck of her camisole to interrupt the otherwise uniform pallor of her skin. Isolt traces a few soft fingertips over the ghastly impurity, wondering if it is her destiny, her punishment, to bear this mark as some not-so-metaphorical scarlet letter so that others may know of this greatest vampiric sin. She had never known of a vampire to lose their Maker to the true death, and certainly not of their own hand... would others know what she had done? Was this reparation for taking one of their own? There was penance for freedom as there was for all things worth having, she supposed; and this, she decides quite swiftly, was but a small price to pay for what she had gained.

It is the brief trek to the pub's communal area that pains Isolt the most. She knows that it shall be empty, barren of the festivities that fill it on a nightly basis, because she has willed it so this night and perhaps those to come. There is much to be done in order to rid this supernatural safe haven of the carnage of the previous eve, to reinstate it to its former granduer and to allow the warmth of communal exuberance to once again permeate. But as she steps out onto the main floor the light patter of her bare feet stops, halted by the presence of... nothing.

Not a sliver of evidence exists as suggestion that an event so heinously cruel had taken place mere hours prior: there was not even a shard of broken wood nor the faintest crimson residue of dried blood to denote the horror that she and Tetradore had endured. Who would or could have done this? The logic required in order to puzzle out such a solution does not and cannot penetrate the thickly-lingering fog of disbelief as Isolt merely lingers in the middle of the pub's dining area in her night things. At the opening of the front door, however, situational awareness comes careening back unto her as the redheaded woman quickly rights herself against whosoever might deem it suitable to enter the clearly closed establishment. But as quickly as her stature rises so too does it grow lax with the presence of perhaps the only individual she desired to see in this moment. "Tet," she whispers, azure eyes straying to the decidedly mundane non-chaos that surrounds her. "Did you... how..." Words betray her as the emotional toil of what had taken place finally finds her, the crimson trace of tears contrasting harshly with the white of her eyes as Isolt can do naught but place a hand upon her mouth in sheer and unabashed disbelief.