isolt griffin

I'm more alive than I've ever been

A single bulb of sickly, black lifeblood erupts from the impossibly small dip of the needle's bite and traces a sloping path down the impossible pallor of Isolt's forearm. Like oil against silk. Isolt's eyes, their once dazzling azure made dark by the shade of the growing storm therein, remain fixed upon the cache of medical personnel still huddled about their daughter. They were the eyes of a woman grappling with the looming reality that her newfound motherhood would soon meet its untimely demise should this final hope shrivel to ash within the craddle of her desparately-clenched fist.

The fire-laden crown of Isolt's head comes to rest upon the single fist still clenched in a destructive vice upon the metal railing of the hospital bed, the other hand remaining coiled within the embrace of her husband's. Were an onlooker not to know any differently it may have appeared as though the new mother was praying. But this was not so. Isolt had abandoned any lingering, tattered scrap of belief in an omnipotent "god" in the aftermath of Aaron's death all those years ago, a belief forever obliterated by the seeming-impossibility of her own passing and subsequent resurrection. She was, after all, at her very core the most heinous afront to any god claiming to lord over the afterlife and its inhabitants with ironclad authority. She was blasphemy. She was sin. Even given separate circumstances Isolt would have hardly offered a passing consideration to the notion of prayer, lacking any desire to afford such reverence to a god who would rob a mother of her child.

No, instead does her head rest upon her fist as evidence of the sheer emotional exhaustion that draws so heavily upon every last bit of her body, mind, and soul. The boundless gaety of minutes ago is engolfed by the haze of a far off pipe dream... an illusion the very existence of which should be questioned given its obscurity. Her body stiffens, ropes of muscle constricting as a viper readying itself to strike, for a long moment as the screams of her daughter fade to the false peace of quietude. This was the moment that would determine everything, both the first and the last moment of an eternity that hung above them in a precarious and unstable limbo.

And then, all at once, the room erupts in a series of blood-curdling screams. It was an impossibly loud sound to come from lungs that were so small, so new. It is a cacophony that wrenches at every last part of Isolt and sees her hand fall from Damon's to land limply, lifelessly, amongst the threadbare coverings of the bed upon which she remains perched for a few lengthy moments more. Shattered, destroyed is this last hope of a mother for her daughter; shredded is the tapestry of possibility already woven within Isolt's mind for the life that they, the three of them, should have gone on to live with one another.

"Isolt..." Renee's voice comes to her as if from afar, as if from another room that was wholly without this tragedy and sorrow. "Stop," she offers, her head rising from its position of rest, to the room and all of those within its confines. Simple and yet profound. It is all that she offers, and yet it seems it is all that is required, all that is necessary. It was, after all, the sole option left available to them... to simply stop.

Isolt slides from the hospital bed, the lavendar gown hanging limply from her body, her legs still trembling as strength ever-so-slowly returns to them, the birthblood now dried into a ghastly Rorschach upon her thighs. She cares naught for this, instead wiping carefully at the streaks of crimson that linger upon her cheeks, unwilling to allow that to be the image of her that would be present within the mind of her daughter, however briefly. The clutch of nurses retreat from mother and daughter with Isolt's approach, though whether this is meant to convey their respect or their fear cannot be definitively known. The vampire woman comes to a halt before the plastic craddle upon which her daughter sobs with such tremendous force that she is nearly breathless, inclining herself so that she hovers over the writhing infant, a gossamer curtain of auburn locks cascading down to shield the babe from the remainder of the harsh lights and peering eyes of the room. With deft, gentle fingers does Isolt make short work of removing the myriad tubes and leads from their daughter's small, plump body, wrapping her snuggly into the pink blanket draped haphazardly about her.

In the moment that Isolt craddles her daughter against her chest the infant's cries dissipate to be replaced by a gentle, contented cooing. As Isolt turns to bring the child closer to Damon she can just hear Renee quietly emptying the room of nurses and disabling the various chirping machines before making her own exit. Carefully Isolt relcaims her spot upon the hospital bed, this time surrendering enough space so that Damon might come to sit beside her... so that they might share these few moments together as the family that they should have been. After a few long moments of silence the auburn-haired woman hands the swaddled child over to Damon, a small yet beautiful smile playing at the plump cushions of her lips as she inclines her own head to rest against his shoulder. The supple bulb of a finger brushes against the sparse strands of delicate, light hair that lay against the slope of their daughter's head, the breathtaking blue of the child's eyes drifting easily from one parent to the other.

"You look just like I dreamed you would... Lillian."