M: I’m feeling a little peckish, B.
Broodwell: What’s on the menu tonight?
M: Creole Vampire Lord.
Broodwell: Ooo, Cajun! Delish!
[Pls note: I’ve been sitting on this idea for 48 hours :D]
The following post is sourced from sweet ffffffffffffffffffffresh nothing-at-all :D
1895
This December was beyond brutally cold, but it was not the driving wind that made it so. Nor was it the sleet and snow that threaten to obfuscate all visibility outside their abode. No. For Viviana Broodwell, the chill she felt invading her every atom was because her beloved Delilah was dying.
The only sounds in the entire room were the crackling of the roaring fire, and the unsteady, struggling breaths of the most beautiful woman in the world. Viviana held tight to her clammy hand and counted her pulses.
It was going to be soon.
“Miss Moreau,” she begged. “Please wake up, darling. I need to ask…”
Three shaky, breaths. Each a battle that dear darling Delilah won, before she flutteringly opened her eyes. They used to be so bright with life. Mere summers ago. It was also a fight for her to speak. Her voice a reedy ghost of the music that once was there. “…hhhmmm?”
“I can save you,” said Viviana. “I can give you the forever I promised you. Just… just let me.”
A weak, rasping gasp. “…victor,” she breathed, “failed…”
“No, not that silly man, sweetheart. Me. And… what I am.” For the first time, she let her fangs come out so Delilah could see. Viviana had hidden her secret well. She’d had to do so for centuries already. “Vhen I promised you forewer,” she said, her Transylvanian accent coming to the fore with her fangs in the open, “I meant to give you my forewer. All you have to do is say the vord. Please, darlink.”
Her breath whistled, now, going in. “…yes…”
Viviana bit her own wrist, and then her lover’s. “Then drink of me as I drink of you. And ve shall have forewer. I vill look after you, Miss Moreau. That I vow.”
The hardest part had not been watching sweet Delilah’s grave, protecting it from resurrection men while she Changed. Nor was it chasing off those idiot men who fought like boys over simple infatuation. No. For Viviana Broodwell, the hardest part was keeping a straight face while the clergyman had spewed lies over Delilah’s grave.
A mist drifted in, making ghosts in the moonlight. The only sounds were the distant noises of night creatures and the steady scrape of resurrection men plying their trade at a less-tended gravesite.
It was going to be soon.
An owl shrieked as Delilah’s pallid hand burst free of the loose loam of her grave. Viviana helped her up and out, embracing her love anew. “Welcome back, Miss Moreau.”
“I am very glad to be back, Miss Broodwell,” Delilah grinned. Her teeth were sharp and her skin was marble given life. Her lips were permanently stained the colour of blood. Just like Viviana.
“Are you hungry, my darling?”
“Starving*!”
“There’s some grave robbers, just over the rise. I’ll show you how to hunt.”
Fangs gleaming in the moonlight, they vanished into the evening mists towards the first of so very many pleasant dinners together. Their afterlives had just begun.
