isolt griffin
There is a deceptively long gathering of moments within which Isolt agonizes over the fear that she may well have, finally, transcended some clandestine boundary separating familiar conversational territory from that deemed unchartered and, thus, unacceptable. The trust she holds for him is absolute and without pause, a beautiful thing in its rarity given how closed and withdrawn the young girl has become following her untimely death; sealed against the world and all of its travesty. However, even this does not stay the seed of doubt as its toxic leaves unfurl within her. He is the only one from whom she cares to glean the answers she seeks so boldly, and yet it occurs to her that he may not very well wish to proffer them so freely. Delicate hands fall from the flounced garland to tangle anxiously within the crimson silk of her locks as Damon turns silently from her. Only as her plush lips curl about an apology, repentance for her transgression, does he turn to her.

Isolt listens dutifully and with genuine attention, the softness of her brow pinched and distorted by the furrow that delves its rivets into it. So absolute is her like for him that she seems to mourn his losses as fervently as he does, lamenting the tragic love story that has, it cannot be denied, withstood the depilating caresses of time. Perhaps there were things that could not be cleansed no matter the length of time with which they were weathered. Worry blossoms eagerly within her stilled gut... worry for him and for herself. Would she hold on to the razored barbs of the despair, anguish, and the loathing she held for Risque and the terror she had wrought? Clutching at them as some petulantly selfish child unable and unwilling to relinquish them wholly to the past for fear that to do so might somehow denote acceptance where none was to be given? Should a hundred years transpire from this moment, would Isolt find herself hollowed further still by the cruel hands of a Maker who had never found her to be of any intrinsic value? As the pale blue of her eyes find his, Isolt can nearly feel the weight of her own hope as it wanes within her heart. Flattened in its entirety as he turns from her.

Instinct and demeanor dug insistently at unseen marionette strings, stirring her to comfort him in the way that she most desires. And yet... nary a step does she venture towards him, finding herself frozen in the door frame, slender digits working nervously upon the immaculate paint of the frame. Chewing anxiously at the soft pillow of her bottom lip, the fire-crowned girl allows the pregnant silence to do naught but expand, to grow between them until it is nearly a tangible thing. Never before has the macabre and gory truth of her turning been uttered aloud, for never has she professed to claim the mental wherewithal to speak of it. It is yet a fresh and gaping lesion upon a soul never meant for this, hemorrhaging still the sorrow and agony of loss that had assumed the place of her lifeblood in the transition. And yet, for him, she finds herself gathering the words that would serve her best, clenching tightly at them as one might a handful of the finest sand. When finally she speaks, Isolt's words are soft... hardly rising louder than a whisper.

"My Maker didn't want me either. She didn't even have the decency to pretend. I was just... in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong guy looking at me instead of at her." She gives pause then, her words caught and jumbled upon the fibrous knot that clenches painfully within the tube of her throat. When her eyes fall to a close she can see him there, the somber gentleman with his impossibly vibrant emerald eyes, and unbidden she recalls without fault how terribly beautiful she had found them. How painfully alluring she had found him. When once again the crystalline of her eyes are unveiled, the look reflected within is distant, forcefully numbed by the recollection of what had followed. The recollection of what had lain in wait for her at the short and salaciously pleasant trail of her attraction to that singularly enigmatic man. "It was a farce... he was a farce," she whispers, the siren's lilt of her voice sullied and strained. "She killed me so that he could watch me die... and then he could watch me live. He could watch me become this and know that it was because of him. And then, every day after, she would-," the syllables splice with the silence that surrounds them, and for a time naught but the subtle crackling of the fire permeates the still. Isolt finds herself waging a war against tears that threaten upon the brims of her lids before resolve, just a shred, returns to her so that she may continue. "She would... torture me. So that I would know that I was only a vessel. So that I would know that I was her pawn and nothing more."

The den falls into all-consuming silence once more, their shared truths hanging about thickly within the air, two emotional fronts meeting in an unheard collision of shared anguish and regret. Only then does she go to him, a single gentle hand reaching to curl about his arm as Isolt seeks to have him face her, the other coming to frame the hard line of his jaw in gentle insistence that he look at her. There exists within her eyes none of the pity that he loathes so completely, her glances instead echoing a manner of care that cannot easily be described, a simper pulling coyly at her lips. "I don't know anything about your brother... or your Maker. But what I do know is that she must have been a fool to think you less than him. She made a very poor choice, Damon... and I hope you see that."