It Begins With a Grave [freedom]

[VANESSA FERRE]

† It Begins With a Grave

It shouldn't be surprising that if a person were to set foot into a grave, there would be no turning back – after all, they'd be dead. But, if a person – or something – were to step foot out of a grave, there is call for some worry. And that was exactly why Vanessa was sent to investigate the recent Re-dead infestation in the Kakariko graveyard. “Investigate” being the key word in the sentence; she wasn't too keen on fighting Re-deads alone or even fighting them in general. Not that she was frightened, but there was something about the way that their feet pad the ground, their moans of hunger, how their leathery arms grasped for the living, the way their gaping orifices sunk against flesh as if eating tendons were the only way they could taste life, that set her senses on edge. How they gorged themselves with the air around them, devouring the energy from every molecule – it made her dizzy. They were certainly more trouble than they were worth.

Her chausses clinked against her sabatons with every step, the sound too familiar that it is nearly forgotten by her ears; only on occasion does the click of armor register in her mind, and only then does it occur to her how much noise she makes which then gives her a forever-headache where her mind would marinate for days. But beyond the grating upon her mind, she could hear the other – the tinkling of Poe lanterns and the howls of wolves, the snickering of ghouls and the silent beating of golden butterfly wings against the twilit air. The time of twilight was a most unfortunate hour, the colors blending into an indiscernible purplish-orange...or was it grayish-pink? It was hard to tell: twilight, where chromatography barely makes enough sense – there's only the mixture of light and dark and the half-blindness that one sees through unfaithful eyes.

The town was quiet, soundless even, save for the clink of her mail, the clicks of mythril against its holster. A curfew.

[/color] She mildly wondered about the situation, after all the graveyard itself was quite small – there shouldn't be more than a few dehydrated bodies prancing about. But the mana in the air was thick with stale life, Vanessa could almost swallow it in gulps of bile. She sighed; another routine that some little Errant could have done. Why must they test her patience with something so trivial, she could have been...It's not like there was anything better to do.[/color]

The calmness of the land was almost stifling. Only the undercurrent of shifting energies kept her alert nowadays. She didn't bother to greet Renaldo or anyone else. Who was she to impose? It was certainly a lovely excuse for her to avoid needless chit-chat. Vanessa made her way to the grave yard with her usual air of nonchalance. The sooner she took care of business, the sooner she could proceed about her mindless business.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]

tags: me, me, and me?
word count: 500
notes: not so much

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[freedom]

x x

In the House in a Heartbeat

Graves were useful to the beast.

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[/color] he said, moving throughout the tombstones, circling around the girl. It was a predator's habit. "Is a creature like you doing here, late at night."[/size][/ul][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]

[VANESSA FERRE]

Stalked and watched -- energy of a predator. She didn’t need to hear, she didn’t need to see the walking bodies or anything that had a drop of energy, life, thirst, lust; they were pinpoints of light upon the darkened map of her mind -- goals, targets, a twisted game of connect the dots for some elusive trophy of morality. And though she didn’t need to, she would prefer not to hear or see these ugly human-sized jerky sticks stumbling about; something about their moans were almost natural, resonant, a different sort of music that tailored to the taste of experience, an elegy of imagined emptiness that only struck the bell of sorrow to those affected by shrieks which froze willing blood. She wasn’t one of those types, though -- why thirst for something she supposedly already possessed? Hydration was key, and she was all too aware of what fed her.

A rumble of deepened vocals vibrated with the darkened molecules of air, breaking her introspection and tossing her back into the noxious reality of undercurrents. So the beast finally spoke. She smiled, a turn of lips so curved against the sinking sky weighted by an invisible moon. Fear? What was fear? His predatory saunter, his gaze that seemed to ensnare her meager figure... Pad, pad, pad. Footsteps heard only by the inner ear feeding off of the drum that was Earth. She answered with sort of light-touched mezzo-soprano, “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude.” She drew her blade, the metal striking air with the power of a glass bell, and without so much as hesitating lunged for the first Re-dead, sword severing its body in two. “This creature like me,” another strike to another body, “just so happens to be dispatching unwanteds so late at night.”

And another and another...thud, thud, thud. The woman’s grin widened to one of slight humor, “It helps me sleep.” Or so she wished. A shriek of anguish, hate, and sorrow crushed its piercing notes against her ear drums, freezing her blood in place in a moment of utter despair -- she was quite used to it. Three, two, one. Grasping fingers brushed at her ivory face, a face of unchanging marble, a smile still upon her lips. One final cut, and it was done. But the earth still pulsed with death, surely there would be more in a moment; her “fun” would last. But until then, she replaced her sword, stilling her movements in a posture of relaxed tension. She didn’t follow him with silvery eyes -- there was no point. “And I suppose to a creature such as yourself, nighttime escapades are of the natural sort.”

A natural gauge of power, fighting would be unadvisable in her case, but if she had to, Claymore would be more than happy to have her blood or his. But fear was out of the equation -- an almost-apathy to the thought save for meta-fear. A little huff. She busied herself with picking off the remnants of rotting flesh from her armor and suit; it was just cleaned not too long ago, and who was she to be unpresentable to a gracious beast who hadn't torn out her jugular yet. She checked her nails out of habit -- grime was most unpleasant -- as it was only a matter of time before the second wave.

"And why," she murmured, "may a creature like you take interest in a creature like me?"

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tags: vanessa, freedom :3
word count: 579
notes: to eat or not to eat? o3o;;;

[freedom]

x x

In the House in a Heartbeat

The woman smiled.

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[/color] the beast said lazily, sliding out of a ReDead's path and allowing it access to the woman's eager sword-arm. She was efficient. Graceful, in her way, but as clumsy as any human wearing metal was bound to be. The beast ignored the comment about sleep. He had no time for what he considered to be such vapidity. Humour was not difficult to understand: say one thing that means another. It was not complex, or interesting, and he could think of nothing significant that came from it. "Yes," he responded to her second question, "They are. You'd be surprised at how often living bodies coalesce around the dead. Like moths to the flame." A ReDead came too close to him. In a flash, he severed the creature's throat with a long, wicked claw. It slumped to the ground, lifeless. It hadn't even been attacking him, but he enjoyed exercising brutality. "Regrettably, these are unfit for eating," the beast muttered, more to himself than anything else. He sighed at her final question, exasperated.

"I am only as interested in you as I am in the rest of your kind. Do not consider it flattery. You happened to be here as I was. So tell me, why is a creature such as yourself 'dispatching unwanteds,' as you put it?' The beast's voice, eyes, and movement were all the same: cold. He watched the next wave of the monsters coming, idly glancing back at the woman warrior. "Not a challenge, certainly. Your skills seem altogether wasted on this weak prey."[/size][/ul][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]

[VANESSA FERRE]

She shrugged, not particularly in the mood for a conversation, merely waiting, always waiting for something -- a mission, a letter, a command, something that bid her to move. “It’s not so surprising at all; it’s part of the living to long for the dead.” The Knight cared too little to pay much attention to the claws of a beast; one may call her foolish, and perhaps she is, but the grip of Ennui and apathy was too great. But it could’ve been a small but of boredom and passive observance and she felt that she would have still succumbed to it -- too little energy to do otherwise.

As the second wave approached, Vanessa continued to kill the undead; all of her movements were mechanical -- she was a silver automaton, and she had long since accepted it. “I wouldn’t dream of flattering myself,” her tone of boredom was spit upon by a dash of lightness that was her own characteristic ring, “I’ve been given an order, and I must obey; there is no waste of skill. There is only consequence.”

Her mind drifted off into the dealings of Re-deads. No matter how undesirable the task, it was in her blood to complete it, and there was no escaping the eyes of her own metal. Each thud of loosened flesh echoed together into a rhythm of sorts -- one that only they understood and one that she conducted; it wasn’t a terrible sound, not nearly as terrible as the wails and moans of bottomless holes, but the smell ... the smell was foul. But it was strange. The waves of corpses for such a small graveyard was uncanny; what was it that drew them here?

She flicked the remnants of flesh from the tip of Claymore and began wandering about the grave site, looking, searching, waiting -- things that she was supposed to do. “I wouldn’t imagine this to be so interesting to you. It merely is my means to a living. Why waste your time here; corpses aren’t a fitting meal, and I don’t suppose people would be loitering this late at night. Unless, they were as fortunate as me.”

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