isolt griffin

She forfeits her attentions to him in the most sincere manner, the oceanic helixes twisting about her eyes glossy with the emotive undercurrent wrought of both their woes. Isolt has heard of the attack on the Nightshade clan through the same bountiful grapevine through which she heard most things; after all, acting as a pub's matron oft found her in the company of those seeking to bend the wanting ear of just about anyone with the time to give. "I know," she whispers, "I came to see Raven after..." She feels not the desire to voice details of the now-infamous altercation, both individuals present of full knowledge of the goings on that fateful eve no matter the secondary nature of Isolt's knowing. As successor to her downtrodden mien, however, comes the resolute setting of a delicate jaw and a tenebrific shade cast over azure eyes. "If he comes for you again, any of you, you have us. You have me." The amendment is made both with haste and with hesitance, the young woman quite in the midst of adjustment to this singular lifestyle and the pronouns that accompany it.

However, despite the internal walls with which she sought to barricade mention of Damon or his abrupt and unprecedented departure from every facet of her life, his name and the truth of his absence fall from the plump and cherried lips of the fire-laden woman. The lithe carapace of her frame visibly sags, shoulders waning with a weight unseen at Tetradore's suggestion, her actions accented only with the politely slow shaking of a delicate head. "I thought that too. And I looked... everywhere. Anywhere I could think of and he's just vanished." It is an axiomatic truth, for Isolt had certainly spent nearly every eve since Damon's initial disappearance scouring the dregs and ditches of Sacrosanct's seediest and most vile underbelly for even the most minute shard of evidence that might bestow upon her some hope... some glimmer of salacious faith that he had not been taken against his will.

And still... there was nothing. Her hands were empty of the hope that had slipped through them just as swiftly and perilously as if she had been clutching at fine parcels of sand. Isolt's hands were empty... she was empty.

The delicate curtains of her lids flutter at the pervading and welcomed warmth of her companion's touch, the vampire having never forgotten what his hands felt like. She had never forgotten the soothing heat of his fingers and it dazzles her every sense as they skate along her pale and icy cheek, proffering more comfort than he could ever fathom. Her lips are bereft an audible answer as she merely nods in response to his offer. It is a decided impossibility for her to look upon him for a time, conflicting emotions taunt and tearing at every edge, every fraying seam that she had long ago learned to hold together. The hitch in his voice, however, and the disruption of his words see the young girl's head snap towards him just as the change takes him, consumes him.

But he need not finish, his words, his warning, merely a formality. He need not finish, for a change takes her as well. A change every bit as familiar as his, and just as unsetting, just as unwelcome and wretchedly defiling. At once she withers, pathetically and without pause, curling in upon herself as does a petal upon a shriveling bloom, her back pressed against the wooden frame of the bar. In this moment, just as she had countless moments before this, Isolt seeks invisibility, seeks reprieve upon the avenue of forced insignificance. The glacial talon scraping down the tumbling vertebrae of her spine is just as vicious, just as painfully foreboding as it had been so very long ago. The laughter, though... her laughter is the final knife plunged just so into the cool and lifeless mass of Isolt's heart. It is a joyless sound, the devil's cackling. Nothing good, no true glee had ever come of this laughter. Only agony.

As Risque traverses the threshold of what may very well have been Isolt's final sanctuary, the youthful redhead transcends time and space to bring her hurtling back to a time that, though she had labored for a year or more to do so, she could not erase from the shambled slate of her memory. So deep runs the damage that it requires every modicum of wherewithal she possesses for Isolt to meet the soul-less eyes of her Maker as an address skates the curl of that blasphemous tongue. "Isolt," she purrs, the vibrations of her own monicer ricocheting about Isolt's chest, "you look so vibrant, and so... well-fed. Oh how I've missed you both." The wretch's eyes fall to Tetradore now, a gruesome curling of blood-red lips failing to conceal the malevolence that gleams as horrifically radiant as any of hell's searing conflagrations in the perfect contours of her facade.

"However," she cooes, her saccarhine notes heralding forth two brooding gentlemen from the impenetrable clot of darkness that seemed her everpresent matrimonial veil, "you've done me a great disservice, my pets. And for that you must be punished." The floorboards bow just so to the weight of Risque's deputies as they advance, leisure marking their paces. One, the cruel weight of his cool grey eyes placed dutifully upon the fledgling vampire, pulls from his pockets a small trifle. The choker that rests within his gloved hands is the epitome of innocence, of grace, its intricate black lacework a practice in artisan elegance. Were it not for the tangle of silver barbs that adorned the inside of the piece it might have presented as quite a lovely offering.

For all of her dwindling fortitude Isolt cannot bring herself to look away, recognition and terror blinding her completely to the advance the second gentleman makes in her companions direction. The only thing that is capable of piercing the smog of memories long repressed is the single command of her Maker, and even this is but a whisper into the gaping mouth of this depthless canyon.

"Take them."