Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She is a kaleidoscope of colours, effervescent and hypnotizing, a star exploding into the black heart of space, expanding into everything around her. The pounding beat of drum solos and guitar riffs vibrate through her entire body as she lays upon a blanket on the muddy ground. The sun is shining, the rain had come, stayed, and left without her notice, beating down on the throng of bodies twisting and turning, dancing and stomping in an orgasmic haze of drugs, love, and damn good music. Rosemary and Glenn make out in the grass next to her, Devon and Amelia had gone somewhere more private. Several others that they had picked up hitchhiking along the way left several hours earlier. She had forgotten their names. She isn’t sure that she even knew them in the first place.

Eva sighs, breathing through the feeling of coming down from a good high, leaving her lethargic and heavy. She sits up, crossing her legs and reaching for her shirt she had taken off at some point. It’s still damp, smelling like a combination of mildew, weed, and sweat.

“Who’s playing?” She asks the others, carding her fingers through her hair to push it into some type of order. She combs the remnants of flowers out of her crimson tresses, leaves and petals raking through her fingers and down to the ground. She’ll need to weave some more in to disguise the knotted strands.

Glenn and Rose detach from one another, “Well look who’s awake,” Glenn says, pulling Eva into a hug while Rose giggles on the ground.

"You should've heard the shit you were saying," Rose says, "Like you discovered the secrets of the universe or somethin'."

"Maybe I have," Eva agrees. Glenn pulls her face in and she kisses him happily, smiling at the feeling of his lips on hers. Rose crawls over to them, tucking herself into the other side of Eva's body. She puts her arm around the other girl, turning towards the main stage off in the distance, where bodies jump up and down, under and over each other, climbing upon one another to reach their hands towards the sky in bliss.

It is all so beautiful.

She can feel the power of their emotions, the love they feel as strong as the sickly smell of marijuana and tobacco smoke in the air. They are connected, she knows, every single one of them, in a giant web, threaded together by the smallest pieces of string.

Perhaps she isn't as sober as she thought.

"C'mon, I wanna go have some fun," Rose says, dragging Eva up by the hand.

"What about the others?"

"We'll find them again," Rose drags her along, giving her barely enough time to grab Glenn and pull him behind them. They leave the blanket behind. It wasn't theirs anyways.

There's something about being in a crowd of people that makes her feel so alive. They all move as one body, a single heartbeat pulsing in time to the music. It gets hot among the crowd, and she ends up losing her shirt once more, climbing on top of Glenn's shoulders to get a better view. She and Rosemary switch after a bit, and suddenly she's dancing with people she hasn't met before, sharing a kiss as quickly as she does a smoke.

She is alive. And life is beautiful.

They are nomads, Glenn says, tied to no name and no place, free to choose their own destinies as all people should.

(Her last name was Powell, once. She had a mother and a father and a younger brother. She had an education and a job as a nurse and a doctor she was supposed to marry. She was sad and alone and nodded her way through life.)

They've moved a lot over the past couple of years, and she's no stranger to living out of a backpack, in the back of a bus with four other people. They were lucky enough to have gotten it to the festival, unlike many people who abandoned their vehicles on the highway in favour of walking. The five of them sleep on top of each other, sharing the pillows and blankets without hesitation.

She can't fall asleep, finding herself twisting and turning in whatever little room she has. It's the post-high of the shrooms, she knows, even though she's done it too many times to count now, she still gets hit with a wave of anxiety after she comes down.

She gets up from the others as quietly as possible, grabs a bar of soap and a towel, and heads out the back of the bus. There's a nearby pond that people have been using for bathing which she walks over to. There are others there, naked and splashing in the water, so she chooses a spot off to the side for herself and strips off the oversized t-shirt she had been sleeping in.

It's dark, and the water is cold. She keeps her sandals on as she wades deeper into it, shivering with every step until she's waist-deep. With one last breath, she screws her eyes tight and plunges her head underwater, forcing her body still as it surrounds her, her hair going to float up around her head. She stays there until her lungs burn, and she pushes herself through the surface with a silent scream for air.

She rubs the bar of soap over her skin, the simple smell of lof lavender a luxury when one lives a life like hers. There’s a song stuck in her head, one she’s sure she’s never heard before, except she knows the words and she can keep the tune. She sings to herself as she runs her fingers through her hair, tearing at the knots and working it into braids, putting it into some semblance of order, though it is unlikely to stay that way.

She startles, dropping the soap when the voice calls out from across the water, clear and present within the dark night, “You have a beautiful voice,” it says, with a slight hint of an accent. Eastern European.

She turns to the shore to see the faint outline of someone standing in the moonlight. She doesn’t shy away from them, doesn’t attempt to hide from their gaze.

“What’s that song?” The voice asks.

“I don’t know,” she replies.

“I like it.”

“Me too,” she walks out of the water. As she draws nearer to the figure, she can see her more clearly. A woman, long hair, dressed in black, which isn’t very festive considering the occasion. She grabs her towel and dries herself as much as she can before putting the t-shirt back on. She sits down next to the woman, patting her hair dry, “What brings you here?”

“Heard there was a party. My... father’s gone out of town, so I came here.”

“Not exactly what I was referring to, but sure.”

She says something under her breath, a language Eva doesn’t know, “I heard a siren singing nearby, and she tempted me to her embrace. Might I ask the siren’s name, before she takes my soul?”

Eva chuckles, “I’m Evangeline. But, just Eva, please.”

“Katya,” she looks over to Eva, long dark hair tumbling down her shoulders. Her shirt opens to pale white skin, tattooed with several crosses down her chest.

“What’re you doing up?” Eva asks.

“I don’t-- well, I guess I’m feeling quite lonely, actually.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Katya looks confused, “Why are you sorry?”

“It’s sad to hear, I guess” Eva shrugs her shoulders, looking around them, gesturing to the pool of busses and city of tents set up on the field, “To be here, among all these people, all this positive energy, and still feel alone.”

“Is that why you’re awake?”

Eva curls the towel around her shoulders, “No, it’s, um, it’s… psychedelics. They make me… twitchy. I can’t fall asleep.”

Katya chuckles, “So alone, just in a different way.”

She hadn’t thought of it like that, “I guess you could say that.”

“We could be alone, together?” Eva turns to look at her, the hint of an expectant smile on her face. Katya’s pretty if a little oddly dressed, and she’s not the type of person to turn down the thought of company.

“...Okay.”

They talk under the moonlight for several hours. Katya seems to ask more questions than answer them, fascinated by what Eva has to say. She leans in on every word and thought, poking and prodding through her answers until she’s exhausted every possible path. Eva, to her own faint surprise, enjoys it immensely. Katya is fascinated by her, though she has no reason why, and it feels nice to be the centre of someone else’s attention, to be the target of their focus for so long.

Katya also doesn’t seem to get tired. As the moon climbs high into the sky and then begins its descent, Eva’s eyes grow tired and her words slur together, she finds herself losing her thoughts until they disappear altogether.

“I’m sorry, but, I should go to bed,” Eva sighs, wiping her hands at her tired eyes.

“Yes, you should,” Katya laughs.

“Are you here with anyone? You can join us, if you want, the other’s would be happy to meet you,” a strand of her hair falls into her eyes.

Katya reaches out to tuck it behind her ear, “I’m afraid not, I’m not really a morning person.”

“Oh..”

“But we can talk tomorrow night? I’ll find you?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful. Off to bed, now, Evangeline.”

The urge to correct her surges within her. There are very few people in the world who use her full name, and she hasn't spoken to any of them in years. But she likes the way Katya says it, the way the vowels sound in her faint accent. She lets it go, says goodbye, and leaves Katya behind in the darkness.

Despite what she had said, Eva still finds herself looking for Katya the next day among the crowd. Logically, she’d stand out dressed in black among the multicoloured tie-dye regalia of the festival-goers. Eva spends the entire day sober of her normal psychedelics (not anything else, however) searching every which way for the fascinating woman she met in the middle of the night. But, as Katya promised, she’s nowhere to be found.

Eva can’t describe the strange attraction she feels towards the other woman. Perhaps it’s just her bleeding heart, reaching out to a lonely soul like the others once reached for her. They can sense her distraction, and are frankly all too amused by it.

The rest of the day goes by all too slowly, each music act melding together in a strange alternative symphony. The others go their separate ways, weaving their way through the crowd. She stays at the edges, more alert and aware than she's been in a while.

That night, exhausted and desperate, she goes back to the bathing lake. The stars are out tonight, after a hot day with no rain, and she brings a baggie of shrooms just in case.

"You came back," Katya says from behind her, startling her to turn around.

"You said you'd find me. I thought to make it easy for you."

"Trust me, Evangeline, I'd be able to find you in any crowd." Once again, she doesn't balk at the sound of her full name.

"Yeah?"

"Hmm. You have a spark in you, bright and powerful. It's... fascinating. Truly."

"Oh, thank you."

"It's not a compliment, it's just the truth," Katya says, lifting up a hand to press it to Eva's cheek, it's unmistakably cold, "The colour is beautiful."

It's hard to ignore the pull she feels to this strange woman, whom she only met yesterday and yet it feels like she's known her entire life. Katya's hand draws her in, and suddenly she feels their lips pressing together. Katya's lips are soft but as cold as the rest of her skin, like kissing a marble statue. Her hands card through Eva's hair, pulling them closer together. It's rough and exciting, violently passionate. It makes her heart race, endorphins racing through her body as her breath grows short. Katya doesn't let up, attaching herself to Eva's lips until she feels dizzy from lack of air. She brings up a hand, pushing back against Katya's chest to separate them. She breathes to recover, yet Katya seems to be completely unaffected, staring on as Eva catches her breath.

"Such a beautiful red," Katya remarks, her head tilted to the side.

"My hair?"

"No. Everything else."

“What else is there?”

Katya smiles, a sharp and deadly thing, though her eyes look sad, “I wish I could show you, but there are a lot of rules.”

“What rules?” Eva gestures around them, “There’s no one here to care about the rules. We can be whatever we want here.”

“And I love that you believe that. But you have to understand, there’s a bigger world out there, far beyond what you understand. You live in a bubble, Evangeline. It’s cute.”

She bristles at Katya’s patronizing tone, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Katya chuckles, “Don’t be angry, you can’t help it. Your life is just what it is, Evangeline. Embrace it. Enjoy it. I don’t pity you. I envy it.”

“It’s nothing special. I just… go where I want. Do what I want.”

“What do you want to do now? It’s up to you.”

She looks out into the bathing pond, a mischievous smile coming to her face, “Come swimming with me.”

On the last night, she gets high, because what else is there left to do when something is coming to an end? She lies by the bathing pond one final night, looking up at the stars as they all blur together into a cloud of shining gold, accents of blue and red flashing through it. She holds her crystal ball in her hands, the small weight of cold class grounding her to reality. Holding it up to her eye, the lights of the stars refracts into a thousand more, and an entire galaxy grows in the palm of her hand.

She finds herself laughing for no apparent reason, rolling around on the dirty ground, leaves and sticks entangling within her hair.

“And how are you tonight, Evangeline?” Katya’s voice says from the edge of her consciousness.

She’s not completely sure if the other woman is there, but she answers anyway, “Stargazing.”

“And more, I see,” Katya says, “Drugs, again, I assume. And how did you… descend into this little habit of yours?”

She attempts to shrug her shoulders, “I don’t remember, Glenn or Rose, probably, maybe Amelia, it was a joint effort, they were right, though.”

“Right about what?”

Eva sighs, turning onto her side to look at Katya’s feet, “I needed to leave. Get away from it all. The people there were no good. I found better people now.”

Kata sits down next to her, trailing her fingers through Eva’s hair, “They do sound like wonderful friends.”

“They are, you should meet them.”

“I’m sure I would love to. Some day.”

“Hmm,” Eva moans, closing her eyes, sure that she will fall asleep on the very ground she lies upon.

“Evangeline?” Katya whispers.

“Yes?”

“Will you come to see me? After all this is done? I would… I would love to see you again. You’ve grown very… special to me in the past few nights,” Katya asks.

“Okay.”

“Really?” She sounds surprised, “That’s… that’s wonderful. Here,” she shoves something into Eva’s hand, closing her fingers around it, “This is the address in Manhattan. Ask for me, and I’ll be there. I know you have other things to do, but, please, don’t make me wait too long.”

“I’ll try not to. Here, take this.” She holds out her small crystal ball, and Katya takes it from her, “That’s very important to me. I’ll come get it, one day. I promise.”

“Thank you. I’ll be waiting,” And Katya leaves.

Throughout the rest of the evening, she remains unsure of whether the exchange had actually occurred, but the next morning she wakes up in the dirt, crystal ball gone, paper clutched between her fingers.

The day after Woodstock is finished, they’re on the road again, a few stragglers joining them in the van, hitchhiking to wherever they decide to go to next. Glenn, Devon, and Amelia switch throughout the drive, as Eva, having never learned to drive, keeps each of them company in the passenger seat, lighting their cigarettes for them and keeping them awake during their evening drives. When it gets too late, they stop on the side of the highway and sleep in the van for the night.

As always, they take the long way back to New York, heading north to Albany to stop for more supplies, spending a week gathering enough to make their way to Canada. They stop in Montreal, annoying the locals with their terrible french accents, and then make the trip into Ontario to Algonquin Park, spending the rest of the August camping, and hiking, and getting high in the woods.

All the while, a small piece of paper floats on the summer winds to the back of her mind, lost among hazy thoughts and stupid ideas.

They spend more time in Canada than they should, travelling throughout Northern Ontario as it descends into a sea of red, orange, and yellow leaves, stopping for a night at a motel every once and a while before going back on the road. By the time the weather turns cold, they’re due back south. They cross the border at Niagara Falls, waving at the natural wonder as they drive by. The others agree that they can get back within the day.

Their chilled autumn day slowly turns sour on the seven-hour drive from Buffalo to New York. When the rain begins, she decides it to be an auspicious sign of renewal. She’s never minded the rain, rolling down the windows of the van so she can stick her head out and get her hair wet, cold droplets running down her neck and spine, sending shivers across her skin. She takes out her baggie of shrooms at some point, rising into her high as thunder rumbles in the sky above them, lightning flashing silver-blue across her vision, turning into neon pink and golden sparkles in her mind.

There’s a horn, somewhere, and the shrieking of tires against the asphalt. Thunder booms and she is thrown from her seat, free-falling into the darkest abyss of cold, heartless black.

When she wakes up, three days later, it’s to the discerning glare of Caroline Danielle Powell, a striking figure in a bright blue dress, hair pulled back into a severe bun, and a sparkling diamond ring on her finger. Her makeup is well put together, with no visible signs of distress gracing her expression, hidden behind a dark layer of red lipstick which accents the slight down-turn grimace of her lips.

“Evangeline.”

“Hi mom,” she croaks, feeling dehydrated in her broken and bruised state.

“What were you thinking, Evangeline?” She asks.

Eva flinches at the second use of her full name in too short of a time, “About what?”

“Everything, Evangeline,” three times now, she must really be mad, “Those… friends of yours. That death trap of a machine. The-- The drugs, Evangeline,” her mother continues, ending off in a whisper at the mention of illicit substances.

“Why are you here, mom?”

She looks shocked, “I get a call in the middle of the night that my only daughter is in a car crash, and this is how she treats me when she awake. I have been here for two days, Evangeline. Your father--”

“Is at work?” Eva interrupts.

“Has been distraught.” Caroline finishes instead.

She shifts in bed, groaning at the feeling of the sheets pulling against her bruises, “Thank you for coming, mom. I’ll be… I’ll be fine.”

Caroline scoffs, “You’re hurt. Your arm is broken, and you have nowhere else to go. You’re coming home, Evangeline.”

“You don’t-- I don’t want you to do that. The others will come get me, I’ll just stay with them.”

“Others?”

“My friends.”

At that, Caroline startles, managing to look quite sympathetic for all of five seconds, “I-- I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Evangeline, but there are no others. You are the only survivor.”

Oh.

Chapter Text

She checks herself out of the hospital the day before she’s supposed to, assuring the hospital staff that she’ll be fine, she’s a nurse herself, she knows how to take care of a broken arm and a few bruised ribs. They’re still hesitant, albeit partially reassured, and return whatever belongings the emergency responders pulled from the wreckage, which is not really much at all.

New York does not welcome her with open arms. The rain they had gone through five days previous seems to have continued throughout the week, intermittently dumping buckets of water on Manhattan. She’s not dressed right to be outside, her clothing getting soaked within a matter of minutes, and she doesn’t have enough money to force a nearby diner to deal with her ragged appearance for a couple of hours.

She ends up in the park by the time the sun starts going down, called by it’s winding pathways and secret corners, trying to hide away from the city around her. The towers and skyscrapers around her dip behind the tops of tall trees and green hills, and she finds herself at The Lake, sitting in the shelter of a large willow tree, looking out to see a group of ducks hiding under the curve of Bow Bridge. Suddenly, she is reminded of a summer night in the middle of August, spent naked in a pool of water with another woman, swimming through the cloudy water, splashing each other in the night, kissing under the half-lit moon. Barely two months ago, now, and yet so much had changed since then.

Ask for me, and I’ll be there.

The words flit across her memory like the water bugs skimming the surface of the lake. She suddenly remembers a small piece of paper, kept in a pocket of her backpack for safekeeping. With numb fingers, she single-handedly rips through the bag, opening everything up and dumping it onto the muddy ground, sorting through damp clothes and various trinkets to find a slip of paper that she had forgotten so long ago. Her hand shakes so much she can barely read the script; perfect, looping cursive written in dark black ink.

Katya apparently lives on the west end of the park, just a couple blocks north of the lake. She grabs her discarded things and stuffs them back in her back, hastily throwing it over her shoulder before taking off at a quick walk in the right direction.

The building is fancy, to say the least, bright white brick and gothic architecture, towering ten or eleven stories above her. There’s a doorman standing under the awning of the entrance, quietly analyzing her appearance as she walks near, but opening the door all the same with a quick nod of his head, “Evening, ma’am.”

She forgets to say thank you, mind losing all train of thought when her skin hits the warm air of the wood-panelled lobby, complete with patterned rugs and red velvet furnishings. The concierge at the front desk immediately gets a good look at her, eyes roving up and down. His mouth opens before she even gets to the desk, and she quickly stops his from interjecting with all the confidence of a girl who used to live in a building very much like this one, “I’m here to see Miss. Katya Iva-- Ivanova, please.”

He doesn’t speak, just nods as he picks up his phone and dials a number. She watches on as she drips cold water on to the carpet, “And tell her-- tell her Evangeline is here to see her.”

He nods, and someone picks up on the other end. She tunes everything out as he talks into the receiver, trying to contain the intensity of her shivering, “She’ll be down in a minute, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” she mumbles.

The elevator dings it’s descent two minutes later, though she barely notices the passage of time. She turns her head, watching as it opens, Katya standing in the car, dressed in luxurious fur. She’s smiling, obviously excited to see her again, but the smile soon turns sour as she drinks in her appearance: scratches still healing on her face, arm wrapped in a sling, skirt and shirt both soaked through and almost see-through, looking like a drowned cat.

She immediately runs to her, throwing her arms around Evangeline, wrapping her in her cold embrace, “Oh, Evangeline, what has the world done to you?”

Evangeline sighs, sliding down the porcelain of the claw-footed tub into warm, bubbling water. She had forgotten how long it had been since she had a real bath, the water encasing her in heat and comfort, filled with floral soaps that assaulted her senses, relaxing her for the first time in days. She keeps her arm on the side of the tub, careful not to submerge it under the water as she holds her breath and submerges her entire head, soap stinging her eyes, bursting up when she must breathe again.

A small knock on the doorframe echoes across the tiled room, and she turns her head to see Katya standing at the door, a pile of large fluffy towels in her arms. Evangeline brings her knees up to her chest, wrapping her good arm around them, suddenly anxious about the other woman’s presence, unsure of where they stood with each other.

“How are you doing?” Katya asks, setting the towels down and going to kneel next to the tub.

“I’m… better,” she replies, nodding along, “Thank you, for this. I’m sorry that I just dropped in on you--”

“It’s fine, Evangeline, it is absolutely fine. I’m happy you came here, honestly.”

“Okay.”

“Now, do you need any help?”

“Um, my hair could use a wash, but I--” Evangeline lifts her casted arm.

“Of course.”

Katya’s fingers card through her hair, her nails scratching against her scalp, washing the suds out of her hair before passing through it twice with conditioner. It’s enough to send her close to the edge of sleep, until Katya pats her on the shoulder, offering her hand to help Evangeline out of the tub. She doesn’t cover herself as she stands from the water, lifting her leg over the side and onto the warm bath mat on the floor.

Katya wraps her in towels, drying her off before threading her arms through a soft robe and leading her through the apartment to the bedroom. It’s large, for New York, covered in dark wood panelling and patterned wallpaper. Bookshelves line the walls of almost every room she’s able to take a peek at, and the living room has a large writing desk with old tomes haphazardly piled on top of it. The bedroom itself is grand, containing a large four-poster bed with a large closet, plush rug, and darkened windows. Katya leads her over to wooden vanity, sitting down on the cushioned bench.

She sees herself in the mirror for the first time in days, looking into her own tired, sad eyes, puffy with tears she has refused to cry. Katya picks up a soft-haired brush, gently pulling it through her hair, “You like it braided, yes?”

“Yeah,” she replies, voice at the point of breaking.

Her mother used to braid her hair, back when she was young and cute and listened to what her mother said. She eventually learned how to do it herself, but always enjoyed when someone else did it for her. When she left, Amelia fulfilled that purpose, and then the others learned soon afterwards.

Katya’s fingers are delicate, the stroke of the brush in her hair soothing. She weaves her crimson hair into intricate four-strand braids on each side of Evangeline’s face, all the while humming a small tune under her breath.

Her tears fall freely down her face, soaking into the soft fabric of the bathrobe.

Katya doesn’t hesitate to let Evangeline stay the night, or even longer if she needs, tucking her into the soft sheets of the grand four-poster bed, and wishing her a good night's rest with a kiss on the forehead. Even with her broken arm, Evangeline falls asleep almost immediately and doesn’t wake up until well past noon the next day, the utter darkness of the room during the day assisting her with sleeping in. Her clothes are neatly folded in a stack on the vanity, an envelope with her name written in familiar looping script sitting on top.

Evangeline,

I’m glad you came to me, and I hope you’ve had a good sleep. While I understand your need to move around, I do hope you’ll stay a little while, my door is always open to you.

I’ll be away for the day, and I’ll be back to the apartment this evening. If you decide to stay, I’ll see you then.

Either way, if you need anything, do not hesitate to call Mr. Coulthard at the front desk for any assistance. He is at your beck and call.

- Katya

She dresses, opening the double doors of the bedroom out into the rest of the apartment, walking through the entire unit for the first time. As Katya said, she is away, but there is still some evidence of her presence left behind: more books open on the writing desk, the faintest whiff of recently-burned incense permeating the air. She is naturally inquisitive, glancing at the spines of the books that span the entire apartment: from history to obscure occultism, to biology textbooks and high fantasy, Katya seems to collect it all. And when the shelves aren’t filled with books, then there’s something else taking up space, handwoven dreamcatchers and rolled pieces of parchment, metal dice and hand-carved bones, an entire collection of tarot cards, some more worn than others, and other trinkets she can barely describe.

There’s something she recognizes in the corner of her eye: a small crystal ball, shaped to fill the palm of her hand, placed in a three-pronged stand high on top of a shelf in the living room, right where it can catch the light spilling in from the windows, splitting into a million beams that scatter across the room. A place of reverence, perhaps, and too tall for her to reach.

Another closed door reveals a small sitting room, much more comfortable, and personal than the living room is. There’s an armchair that calls her name, stuffed and worn down, with a hand-knit throw hung over it’s back. A large antique gramophone sits in the corner, the pin already dropped onto a record.

She hadn’t thought to stay when she had woken up that day, but the armchair calls to her, and the books, and the music. Stability hasn’t been something that she’s been able to enjoy in a long time, and she convinces herself that she, perhaps, deserves it, if only for another day.

She starts the gramophone and goes to look for a book to read, the music following her through the halls of the apartment.

Avec mes souvenirs
J'ai allumé le feu
Mes chagrins, mes plaisirs
Je n'ai plus besoin d'eux
Balayé les amours
Avec leur trémolos
Balayé pour toujours
Je repars à zéro
Non, rien de rien
Non, je ne regrette rien

She reads until the music runs out, and then she resets the record and reads until it runs out again. The room gets dark and she has to turn on the light. She gets chilly and she wraps the throw around her shoulders.

If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids singing.

Wendy and Peter and the rest of the Lost Boys were at the mermaid lagoon when she heard the door of the apartment open, Katya’s voice ringing throughout the rooms, “Evangeline?”

“In here,” she replies, bookmarking her place, looking up to the doorway as Katya walks into view. She looks relieved, a smile forming on her face when she sees Evangeline.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Katya says.

Evangeline shrugs, “I thought I could stay an extra day. Your books were too good to pass up.”

“What did you find?”

She looks down in her hands at the leather-bound book, embossed with gold print and filigree, “Peter Pan. I used to read it as a kid. My Father didn’t like it, he said it was childish,” she sighs, ”I always wished to fly away like Wendy. Go to Neverland, and have adventures. I’d never have to grow up.”

“Even Wendy grew up eventually, Evangeline,” Katya grabs her hands, holding them in her cold grasp, “Now come, you’re probably hungry. And I have a present for you.”

Katya tugs gently on her hands, and Evangeline follows, out of the sitting room, through the hallways, and into the dining room. Katya urges her to sit at the head of the large wooden table, setting her place with a wine glass, silverware, and fine china that looks like it's rarely been used. She can smell something coming from the kitchen, her stomach gurgling at the thought of food.

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I just got as much as I could,” Katya explains as she starts bringing food out on serving plates, piping hot and delicious. A tower of mashed potatoes and a boat of gravy, roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, sweet peas and carrots in butter, and roasted root vegetables with bright red beets that stain the bowl. She hoards it on her plate, eating in a way that her mother would describe as ‘utterly unladylike’, unashamedly stuffing the decadent food in her mouth between breaths, all the while Katya watches on from the other side of the table, plate set in front of her, though it remains empty.

“Aren’t you hungry?” She asks, food still in her mouth before she swallows it, licking the gravy off her lips.

“No. I’m happy that you are though,” Katya smiles.

She continues eating, watching Katya as she watches her, “You don’t have to sit all the way over there, y’know.”

Katya smiles shyly, getting up to move to sit next to her.

Dessert is a slice of cheesecake with fresh cherries on top, and afterwards she feels stuffed, having not eaten so much in such a long time, “Thank you,” she tells Katya, wiping her face with a napkin, a smile slowly appearing.

“It’s good to see that, again,” Katya remarks, her eyes so focused on her.

Evangeline blushes, “It… feels good. The hurt is still there, of course, but it’ll heal.”

“That’s good to hear. Now, my gift,” Katya gets up from the table, disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Oh, you didn’t have--”

“Trust me,” Katya returns, a small glass vial in her hand, which she places on the table, “You need this. It’ll help your arm.”

She looks at the vial, dark, viscous liquid, stopped with a cork, nothing like any actual medicine she would have been aware of, “What is it?” She asks, holding it up to the light.

Katya takes it from her, “It doesn’t matter,” removing the cork and holding it out, “I just want you to be better, Evangeline. Please.”

She looks at the vial, and up to Katya’s eyes, deep dark brown and utterly sincere, and takes it from her, hesitating for only a second before downing it in one go.

It’s sweet and intoxicating.

She wishes there was more.

The next day she feels… fine.

Just fine. No undercurrent of pain in her arm, no irregular feeling of unease, no dreary thoughts to haunt her wake. Walking over to the vanity, she looks into the mirror to find the scrapes and cuts on her face are healed, and the bruises have disappeared from the skin on her abdomen. Once again, Katya has left a note on the vanity for her, along with a key.

Evangeline,

I hope you are doing well, and that your injuries have been healed. While I would love for you to stay longer, I dare not hope. You have your own life to live, and I do not wish to tear you away from it. If you must leave, then I will do nothing to prevent it.

Please, take this key. If you ever need a place to rest, my door is always open to you.

- Katya

She smiles, folding the note and putting it in her pocket, along with the extra key. Her bag is sitting in the corner of the room, already packed and ready for her to leave. She had said that she would only stay for another day, and she did. It was time for her to move on.

She locks the apartment behind her, taking the elevator down to the lobby. Mr. Coulthard behind the desk nods when he sees her, greeting her with a gruff ma’am as she exits the car. The doorman holds the door for her, and she steps out into a sunny autumn’s day.

She first goes back to the hospital to get her cast taken off, the x-ray revealing a perfectly healed bone, which she is surprised by, but not too surprised. The rest of the day, what little there is left in it after the hospital, she takes to herself, taking a train down to Lower Manhattan to sit and eat lunch in Battery Park, watching the ferries carry tourists back and forth to the Statue of Liberty.

When she first started travelling with her friends, they would buy a map from a gas station on the side of the road, spread it out in the back of the bus, and pick a place to go at random. It had never really mattered where they went, in the end, just the journey there, and the journey was always the best part anyway.

But she doesn’t have a place to go, doesn’t have people to go with.

She waits in the park until the sun begins to set, and the ferries close for the evening. Life moves on around her, couples walking along the paths, men in suits and briefcases busily trying to get to where they needed to go, mothers and fathers and children running along the grass.

She is separate, a lone girl sitting against a tree with a backpack, planning to run away to wherever life was easier.

It’s as dark as it can get in Manhattan when she takes the train back to Central Park, nods to the doorman and Mr. Coulthard on the way up to Katya’s apartment. She uses her key to open the door, walking into the faint scent of burning incense and comforting warmth.

She finds Katya in the living room, sitting at the writing desk. She looks up as she enters, a smile appearing on her face when she sees her.

Evangeline takes her backpack off, dropping it to the floor dramatically, “I would like to stay.”

Years of living a life as a nomad has left her unprepared for staying in one place. Her clothes are old, repurposed and patched up with various pieces of fabric, splashes of colour that don’t really match or make any sense. She doesn’t have a proper winter jacket or a toothbrush that isn’t older than a year or so. Her toiletries are a dozen or so bottles of various shampoos, grabbed from hotels that they would stay at during their travels.

Katya doesn’t hesitate to use her wealth to fill her wardrobe, and she doesn’t care to spend her money on anything less than quality. After barely a month of living at the Central Park apartment, she has a closet full of her own clothes, all expensive, with jewelry and accessories to match. Katya likes to bring her gifts, a pair of leather gloves, a fur coat, a good pair of winter boots in preparation for winter, dressing her up like her own personal mannequin.

Her days are still her own, Katya leaving sometime before she wakes up and returning in the evening when she eats dinner. There’s a maid now, Danielle, with grey, dead eyes, and a nod for every command, who comes to cook for her. And Katya leaves her cash, so she can do whatever she wants, spend her days travelling the city without the restriction of limited funds.

Leaving the apartment, however, has its own downsides. She never feels more alone than when she’s on the subway by herself, looking at the passengers going through their lives, from workers doing their early commutes, to children skipping school, it’s a look into the lives of people who all have somewhere to go, someplace to be, and people to be there with. She tries it for the first week or so, going to the spots she once loved as a child, but even the nostalgia of innocence can’t soothe her loneliness.

She stays in the apartment more than not, losing herself in Katya’s endless supply of books, listening to her music over and over, finding her favourites among the collection. She waits until Katya returns, anticipation building up through the day, running to greet her at the door when she hears it open at night.

Her days a long and isolating, but their nights together are wondrous. Katya spares no expense for her, private dinners in fancy restaurants, horse-drawn carriage rides through the park at night, tours or private clubs across the city, barred to nothing but the city’s elite. Evangeline is an addict of her attention, striving to be worthy of it, to keep it within her grasp. She worries that they’ve spent too much time together, that eventually, Katya will grow bored of her. But Katya does not seem to stray.

She feels loved. And she loves in return.

It is not the dutiful love she once felt, engaged to a man that she had met when she was young, approved by her family and society. Compared to this, it feels fake and hollow, and she wonders how she could have ever lived like that, who she would have become if she had stayed. She doesn’t like to think of it, for nothing could compare to what her life is like now, and dwelling on the past just makes her sad.

But she wants more.

As thankful as she is for Katya and her loving generosity, there is still something that goes unspoken between them, something hidden that she cannot uncover. There are mysterious liquids that heal bones overnight, strange books that are not for her eyes, that disappear slowly the longer she stays there, locked doors that she forgets about until she sees them again. It doesn’t take long for her to piece together something, though she doesn’t have a word for what that something is.

She asks a question.

And Katya answers it.

(The word is Kindred)

It doesn’t take long for her to acclimatize to a fully nocturnal lifestyle. It’s almost surprising how easy it is for her, to deny herself the sight of the sun, the sparkling water of the Hudson on a bright winter’s day, but the night offers so much more than it did before, and the day seems dull by comparison.

After the initial existential crisis is over, life returns to a heightened sense of normal, the mistruths that one lay between them now left behind. There is trust now, and with trust comes intimacy.

She had forgotten what it was like to sleep in the same bed as another person. And although Katya is different, to say the very least of the matter, it still feels nice. It feels like home, just the two of them, in their bedroom together, watching each other descend into sleep as the sun slowly rises. She always wins, Katya forced to rest from her very nature, her eyes blinking until they finally shut one last time.

There is more. There are secrets she pulls from Katya with a sweet tongue and a smile, things that Katya does not give away freely, but they open her eyes to a secret world, fascinating and powerful. Magic and secret societies, beings that have lived lifetimes, watching and shaping humanity as they please. It is altogether, truthfully, quite terrifying to hear. But this is who Katya is, and she aches for her.

It is surprising to realize how much she desires eternity. For all she’s heard, it is more curse than a gift, but what is a curse to bear for someone you love?

She asks a question.

And Katya answers it.

(The word is No)

For the first time in months, she doesn’t sleep during the day.

There’s an incessant twitch in her fingers, a hum under her skin, the faint static of anger that won’t go away, haunting her thoughts, toiling round and round in her mind. She looks over to the other side of the bed, where Katya’s still body rests in lifeless sleep, perfectly still, a beautiful, marble, corpse. She reaches out with a finger, tracing Katya’s cheekbone, the bridge of her nose, the curve of her lips, but she gains no reaction from her exploration.

She pokes her cheek, still nothing.

She pinches her arm. Dead to the world.

Evangeline wonders why she would say no, why she would refuse her the one thing they both should want. Months since the death of her friends, the end of life as she once knew it, and yet she finds herself here, a new life waiting in the wings, with a woman she loves, and who loves her in return. Yet the temptation of eternity seems to be enough to squander it, so perhaps it isn’t worth as much as she thought.

She doesn’t enjoy such dark thoughts, has always tried to stay away from them in the past. She used to talk them through with her friends, once, they’d talk through the day, all the way through to night until it was nothing but a speck of dust. But there’s no one left to talk to, so needs declare something else to fill the void.

She gets out of bed, hastily dressing in some of her old clothes, rather than any of the things that Katya has bought for her, intending to blend in. She grabs a bundle of cash, and the spare key to the apartment, locking it when she leaves. She heads for the east side of the park, walking on the path, past the Bethesda Fountain, and then north to the Alice and Wonderland statue. She’s done this more than a dozen times before, looking around in the crowd of the statue for a man she’s met several times, but never learned his name.

An hour after she leaves, she returns to the apartment with a small plastic baggie of high-quality shrooms, guaranteed to squash any dour thoughts within minutes of abusing it.

She decides to lay herself out on the living room floor, her favourite blanket pooled like a cushion under her head. Her crystal ball still sits on top of the bookshelf in the corner, the light going through it spotting the room, like a thousand stars in the middle of the day.

Getting high again after so long is intense to say the very least. Hours pass by without her notice, the floating sensation of the high leaving her hanging in a void of psychedelic madness. She sees her dead friends, their bodies bent and broken, throats slashed by bloody claws. Her disappointed mother stares at her with a cold and loveless gaze, ageing until her skin sags and her eyes roll back in her head. Then Katya appears, her eyes dead and empty, oversized canines dripping with blood that falls down her chin and soaks into her clothes, puddling on the carpet below. Evangeline drowns in the blood, can feel the boiling, viscous liquid encase her as she thrashes against the floor, gasping for breath.

She climbs out of the deep pit of the high over several hours, exhausted and strung out, a disgusting knot of nerves buried at the bottom of her gut.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself, Evangeline,” Katya’s voice cuts from the haze. She looks toward the couch to see Katya sitting upon it, dressed in a long black silk robe.

“Wha’?” she groans, turning on to her side, curling her body around her stomach.

“Where is the rest of it?”

“Noo, it’s mine. ‘M not telling.”

Katya scoffs, “Is this how you react when you don’t get your way? Poisoning yourself?”

She moans, feeling Katya’s radiating disappointment, “Fuck off.”

“Go to bed, Evangeline.”

“Can’t.”

She hears her sigh, then get up from the couch, going to gather her numb form in her arms, lifting her off the floor with unnatural strength. She struggles against the hold, “Le’ me go.”

“Stop. It.” Katya commands, furious brown eyes looking directly into hers. She goes still.

Katya deposits her on their bed, tucking her under the heavy covers, and leaves without another word.

She drifts off to sleep.

Katya is gone for three nights.

The first night, she writes it off, Katya is angry, she’ll take the night to cool off, and before sunrise, she’ll come to apologize, and everything would go back to normal.

She spends the night reading, a normal novel this time, not one of Katya’s magical tomes that are forbidden to mortal eyes. She sits in her chair, her hair worn down, dressed in one of the dresses that Katya had bought for her, black lingerie underneath, ready to apologize for whatever wrongs Katya believes she committed.

She waits on their bed a couple of hours before dawn, waits until it nears, comes, and passes, all without seeing Katya walk through the double-doors to the bedroom. She fights against her need to sleep, until she passes out, still dressed up and beautiful on the bed. When she wakes the next night, her hair is mussed, the dress wrinkled, dark red bands worked into her skin where the lingerie had dug in overnight.

And Katya still isn’t there.

Danielle with her dead eyes still comes to make her breakfast, and Mr. Coulthard still picks up when she calls him, but he doesn’t know where Katya has gone either.

She grabs her baggie of shrooms from her hiding place, and puts on her coat, walking to the park. She finds a place that’s secluded, with a view of downtown, the perfect place to get high and fall into the lights of Manhattan, but Katya’s voice plays in her head, over and over and over and--

She throws the baggie on the ground, yelling in frustration, kicking it into the stone, again and again until it breaks, powder scattering across the ground. She kicks at it until her toe hurts, and her tears fall freely.

She goes back to the apartment, for where else would she go, and goes back to bed.

The third night, she doesn’t eat. Danielle sets out handmade crepes, topped with cream cheese and fresh raspberries, but she can’t bring herself to taste it, sitting at the dining table, still clad in her nightgown. She shivers, even though it isn’t too cold, and Danielle wraps her in the hand-knit throw without even asking. She doesn’t try to get Evangeline to eat, leaving at her normal time, and once more she is alone.

She doesn’t feel like eating, she doesn’t feel like reading, so she goes to her armchair and puts a record on the gramophone, staring at the patterned wallpaper as the music plays and she listens with grief-stricken indifference. The music stops once, and then a second time after she puts down a new record, and after she’s just put on a third, the door opens.

She doesn’t dare to hope, freezing in place, waiting for Danielle’s quiet greeting, or Mr. Coulthard’s stomping gait.

“Evangeline?” Katya’s clear voice calls out. She almost sobs, tripping over her feet to run to the door, pushing herself into Katya’s surprised embrace.

“Evangeline?” Katya asks again, arms suddenly full of the girl on the verge of tears, burrowing her face into her neck as she stumbles over apologetic words, “Oh, moy bagrovyy lepestok, what is wrong?”

Katya pulls Evangeline away from her, holding her face in her hands.

“I-- I’m so sorry,” Evangeline says between her gasps for breath, “I didn’t-- I didn’t want to-- I didn’t mean--” She can’t get the words out. Tired and frustrated she sighs, clenching her eyes shut, “Just please don’t leave me again,” she whispers.

“Oh, sweet sparrow, I am so sorry,” Katya says, kissing Evangeline on the forehead, “I just needed time to think, sweet thing, I wasn’t leaving you.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Evangeline says between her gasps for breath, unable to look Katya in the eyes, “You’re right, I was being stupid, and immature, and childish, and I--”

“Shhh,” Katya interrupts her, quieting her sobbing ramblings, “Come over here, sweet thing, sit down with me, calm down.”

She leads Evangeline over to the living room, sitting them down on the couch, waiting until she had calmed down.

“I have a gift for you,” Katya says, reaching into her coat pocket to pull out a small velvet box.

Evangeline gasps, aware of the significance, watching as Katya opens it to reveal four interconnected copper bands.

“What is it?” Evangeline asks.

“It’s a puzzle ring,” Katya explains, “Here, let me show you.”

She takes the rings out of the box, careful fingers putting together the intricate device until the four rings come together as one, placing it in Evangeline’s palm, “And there’s an inscription on the inside--”

“Moy bagrovyy lepestok,” Evangeline whispers upon seeing the familiar Cyrillic script.

“My crimson petal,” Katya repeats in English, pressing a kiss to her lips, “My beautiful crimson petal.”

Evangeline puts it on her left ring finger, where another’s had once been many years ago, “It fits perfectly.”

“It’s a promise,” Katya says.

Evangeline looks to her, surprised.

“You were right,” Katya continues, “I… want to be with you,” she pauses, trying to find the words, “To have one such as you it-- it is no small thing, Evangeline. And I did not realize what I would be losing.”

“So you’ll--?” she asks, afraid to say the words.

“Yes,” Katya nods, “Yes, I will Embrace you. And you’ll be mine, and I’ll be yours,” she presses her forehead to Evangeline’s, “And we will be together, forever.”

She grabs Evangeline’s hand, pressing her lips into the cold metal of the copper ring, the pricks of bloody tears welling at the corner of her eyes.

In a small room in the apartment with an armchair, and a hand-knit throw, and collection of favourite books, an antique gramophone plays its last song.

Des nuits d'amour à plus en finir
Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place
Les ennuis, les chagrins, s'effacent
Heureux, heureux à mourir

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose

Chapter Text

In lieu of burning candles, the Central Park apartment is decorated with lines of Christmas lights, crisscrossing their way along the ceiling and walls, like thousands of tiny little stars glimmering in the darkness. She can smell lavender, and burning incense, and, as always, the faint whiff of bloody iron that permeates the air in Katya’s apartment.

Tonight is the night she dies.

It’s not necessarily a nice night, humid and sticky from the beginning of the spring rains, the sound of spitting against the windows background noise to match the more ominous tone of the evening. Katya bought her a new dress for the occasion, long crimson silk with a constructed bodice that makes her feel like a princess. She plays with the puzzle ring on her finger as she waits, twisting it against her skin, taking it apart and putting it back together again.

Katya told her, once, about her Embrace, the terror of being picked off the streets one night and turned, clinical and detached, all for the good of the clan. With Evangeline, she wanted it to be different. She wanted something all to themselves.

“You look… radiant, Evangeline,” Katya states from the doorway, leaning against the frame, “I can’t wait for you to see it.”

She blushes, “I’m ready.”

“You are,” Katya agrees, stalking toward her from the doorway to kneel before her on the ground. She reaches out a hand, tracing it along Evangeline’s cheekbone, slowly down her neck to the line of the red dress.

“Are you scared?” Katya asks, pressing her palm to the beating heat of Eva’s heart.

“A bit. Not really, though. You’ll be here,” Eva says, taking Katya’s hand within hers, pressing a kiss to her cold skin.

“I will be. I’ll be here for you.”

“Then there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Katya only answers with a nod, and the press of her hand, urging Eva to lie done on the bed, the skirt of her dress sprawling around her. Katya follows her down, hovering over her form before turning to lie next to her on the bed. She mouths at Eva’s neck, fangs teasing at the skin. Her breath goes quick as the anticipation grows, heart beating in her chest, arousal turning in her gut, the reaction so familiar to her. When Katya finally breaks the skin, she gasps, drowning in the pleasure of the Kiss. Every time feels like the very first time. She’ll never be used to current.

She can’t turn, can’t see Katya as she drinks from her throat, her hand goes out quickly, trying to ground herself, and Katya finds it, grasps it tightly within her fist. The initial panic dies off and she drifts into the lethargic, body going calm and still. Colours swarm her vision, swirling above her on the white ceiling, like the ones that Katya sees when she looks at her. She focuses on them, tries to name each one she can, but the words grow hazy in her mind, the colours blur around the edges, and then--

Violet.

Green.

Yellow.

Blue.

Red.

Red.

RED.

-- the most wonderful taste in the world overwhelms her, sweet and spicy, strong against her tongue. She barely understands what she is, but something deep inside her yearns for it, she presses her mouth against it, suckles at the taste like a newborn baby.

Fingers card through her hair, delicate and soothing, “Good girl, Evangeline. Keep drinking. Good girl.”

The voice is beautiful, and she focuses on it, letting it drown out the other, dark and grating at the edge of her mind.

Sitting on the floor of the apartment living room, Katya drinks from her wrist as she glances around the room. Space that she had inhabited for months seems completely changed, though she’s the only thing that’s different now. Katya finishes her feed, licking the wound closed.

“And?” Evangeline asks, watching as her skin knits back together. Katya smacks her lips together, rolling the taste of the Vitae around in her mouth as she inspects its qualities.

“Your blood is… strong for a childer, though not as strong as mine. There are rituals, however, to deal with that, and you are a natural,” she says, booping Eva on the nose. She gets up from the floor, walking over to her bookshelves, “You’ll master the thaumaturgical rituals first, the basics of the blood, and then we can move on to more… interesting pursuits.”

“Like what?” She watches as Katya runs her fingers against the spines of the old books, stopping every few seconds to grab one from the shelves.

“We can start with something simple, telekinesis is relatively common, and then we move on, see what your blood is capable of. Who knows, you could have the capability to wield the powers of the Gods themselves.”

She suppresses a shiver at those words, amazed at the potential of her abilities. Katya places her stack of books on the ground, and Eva quickly grabs one, flipping to a random page, “I-- I can’t read this.”

“Hmm. Languages before practice, then. You’ll need Latin, of course, Ancient Greek, Sumerian.”

“That sounds like it could take forever to learn.”

“Indeed, a lifetime even. But we have centuries of those, my love,” Katya kisses the edge of her hairline.

“And you’ll teach me?”

“Everything I can, and more.”

(Fire is consuming, fierce and strong. It thrusts and pulls, devours everything in its path. It is unwieldy, with its own mind and direction. It requires a light touch, not control, but the slightest push into a specific direction, and even then it might not follow.

She is not fire.)

“Holy shit,” she exclaims, looking at herself in the floor-length mirror, Katya behind her, arms wrapped around her waist. She nibbles at Evangeline’s neck, every once in awhile testing her skin with a sharp canine, but never piercing it. Shivers travel down her spine with each attempt, and her aura pulses a deep crimson in time.

Aura is not unlike the psychedelic hallucinations she used to receive while high, albeit with more purpose than those drug-induced visions. The swarms of coloured emotion that surround both her and Katya intwine with one another when they are near, swirling into one mass. They react to one another, colours appearing and disappearing with a blink of the eye, calling and replying in a language that she understands, but could not put into words.

“And?” Katya asks, her hands going to the front of Evangeline’s jeans, sneakily unbuttoning them.

Her aura sparks crimson once more, “I can see why you call me crimson petal, if this is what you see,” she remarks, melting back into Katya’s embrace, “This is what you saw when we first met?”

Katya smiles into the skin of her neck, “Yes, it was like a beacon to me, so bright, so powerful.”

The compliment, along with the fingers playing at the zipper of her jeans, would have caused her to blush not so long ago. But her body barely registers such things now. The shortness of breath is gone, the beating of her heart against the inside of her chest. She is still as Katya’s fingers linger further, distracted by the faded hue of Katya’s own aura entwining with hers.

“Why is yours so dull?” She asks, worry tinging the edge of her voice.

Katya sighs, matching her gaze in their reflection, “I’m older than you, sweet thing, and no matter how immortal I may be, age still leaves its mark. But there are ways to get it around it.”

Her aura sparks with colour, blues and purples and greens appearing and disappearing all at once, leaving it bright and full. Her fingers grow warm against Evangeline’s cold skin, and she inhales a large intake of breath through her nose, taking in her scent. Evangeline feels Katya’s chest rising and falling against her back.

“How-?” She asks.

“Come here,” Katya whispers, turning her around and leading her back towards their bed.

(Water is lethargic, calm and cool. It flows and swirls in a million directions at once, asking to be reigned in by its wielder, asking where it should go next, what to do when it’s done. It needs a minder, something to take care of it, or else its potential remains squandered.

She is not water)

Katya takes her out on the roof one night, with a secretive smile and a promise of magic. The summer is long gone, making way for cool wind and frigid evenings, though such things don’t affect her anymore. They can both go outside in light silk shirts and flowing skirts and not feel a thing.

Once outside, she walks to the edge of the building, sticking her toe out over the five-story drop to the sidewalk below. She looks down at the people passing by, towering above them on her perch. If she just stepped over, she’d fall, plummet to the streets beneath her, twisting bone and breaking skin. They’d crowd around her broken body, all in shock at her supposed suicide.

Then she’d get up, and walk away.

That’s all that separates her from them, just one, short, fall.

“Evangeline,” Katya calls for her, and she turns away from her dark ruminations to her sire, the other woman’s hand outstretched towards her. She walks over, gladly accepting it as Katya spins her around in a twirl and brings her against her chest, lifting her up so that she’s standing on top of Katya’s feet.

“What are we doing up here?” Evangeline asks through her giggling, Katya’s arm around her waist pressing them together, their faces mere centimetres apart from each other, sharing one another’s space.

“Just don’t let go,” Katya whispers, threading the fingers of their hands together.

She panics when her feet first leave the safety of the roof, hovering just inches above it, nothing but air holding her up. She twists in Katya’s grasp, but Katya holds on tight, watching her and waiting for her to calm down before ascending higher. The apartment disappears beneath them as they fly up, and her panic turns to fascination as Manhattan grows smaller beneath her feet. They hover steadily in the air, the city like a thousand stars below them, with the big black sea of night extending up above.

“Welcome to Neverland,” Katya says as Evangeline looks around them, picking out landmarks and buildings as they fly higher and higher; the dark black spot of Central Park, the glowing beacon of Times Square, and the tall pinnacle of the Empire State Building. But they are higher than it all, dancing on their own little cloud, far above the mortal world, one long drop separating them from all the rest.

“Don’t let me fall,” Evangeline says, pressing her forehead against Katya’s.

“I never will.”

(Earth is stubborn, strong and cruel. It stays where it is, and demands her to move it, to stare it down and command it to change, to be anything else than what it wants to be. It wants a dictator, one with a force equal to its own, to put it in its place.

She is not earth.)

She is never more close to the living than when she is working magic. Sure, she can force her heart to beat, her lungs to expand, her skin to grow warm, but that is merely artificial. The satisfaction it supplies is minuscule, a fleeting moment in comparison to the vastness of immortality spread before her. But magic, as Katya explains it, is their deathright, it flows within her Vitae, entwined and buried within her, waiting to be explored, begging to be abused.

Katya watches on, laid out on the couch, as she mixes her blood in the silver bowl on the ground in front of her, her Sire’s eyes entirely focused on her. She recites the words with perfect clarity in a language she cannot describe, it’s entomology so dissimilar to anything of the other ancient tongues she has learned that she can only assume that it came from a time long before. The power in those words excites her, her entire body humming with it as the blood she had shed from her wrist slowly boils down until there’s nothing left in the bowl except for three things: a bright pink human tongue, and a set of honey-coloured eyes staring back at her.

It should make her queasy, but she doesn’t hesitate to reach out her hand and grab the tongue, soft and wriggling in her grasp, bringing it up to her mouth. She doesn’t look at it, tries to keep the grossness factor of what she is about to do out of her mind as she looks at Katya. Her sire sits up, leaning forward to rest her arms on her knees, and nods for her to continue.

It’s not unlike taking a bite out of a rare steak, though it doesn’t taste like one. Nothing tastes like it once did before all she craved was the blood of another living being. The wretchedness of the tongue is hard to describe, like rancid meat and moulded cheese, and she has to fight against everything that she is to swallow it down and keep it there. The eyes are similar, spongy and soft to bite through, but a war against her senses, sour milk and rotted fruit playing in her mouth. She swallows them down too, clutching at her stomach as the last words of the ritual stutter past her lips, not as clear before as she struggles to maintain her composure.

The rush of magic courses through her veins after the last word, heat boiling through her, wiping the pain in her abdomen and the taste in her mouth away. Her vision goes blurry, her eyes burn in her skull, her tongue goes numb in her mouth and she can barely move for a moment before the rush stops, the magic returning to her blood like a slowly ebbing tide.

“D-Did it work?” She asks past her tongue, which feels like a stranger’s in her mouth. She moves it around, tasting the inside of her cheek, pressing it against the points of her incisors. It’s not right, she can feel it, but she can't put the description of its oddity into words.

Katya leans in closer, a small smirk at her lips, “Looks like it.”

She stands up, walking over to a bookshelf to glance at their spines. Evangeline looks over to a cabinet on the opposite wall, staring at her reflection in the mirrored door, a set of honey-coloured eyes looking back at her.

“Here, try this,” Katya says, shoving a book into her hands. She looks at it in her lap, leather-bound, traditional Chinese letter embossed in gold written on the cover. Without a second thought, she reads the words out loud in perfectly accented Mandarin, understanding each one in English as she does. Smiling to herself, she opens the book, eyes automatically starting at the top-right column of text, reading downwards, and then going to the next column to the left. Every phrase that leaves her lips comes to them unbidden, she doesn’t know the characters before she reads them, but as soon as she does she knows and understands them, and then that understanding all of a sudden disappears.

After another minute or so of experimentation, Katya reaches out her hand, tearing Evangeline’s gaze away from the page. She lounges forward, pressing the other woman down to the carpet as she crawls over her lap, the book falling, forgotten, to the floor as she attacks her lips with bruising kisses and sharp teeth.

(Lightning is wild, bright and free. It sprints and cuts through the world, leaving patterns of silver in its wake. It requests a place to go, and it gets there all on its own, its own path created in an instant, and changed the next, gone in a flash.

She is not fierce. She is not calm. She is not cruel.

She is lightning.)

It takes her several months to finally realize that the apartment has become more prison than haven for her.

To Katya’s credit, she tries to keep Evangeline entertained, happy, and satisfied, to keep her mind off the fact that she can’t go outside, can’t show her face around the gathering places of Kindred without questions being asked. Her sire showers her with presents, books mostly, dresses and expensive jewellery. There is never a night that she goes hungry, a steady supply of blood bags get sent to the Chantry for experimentation every week, and Katya requisites a large amount of them to feed her hungry Childe.

But gifts and distraction can only go so far, and Evangeline begins to long for her previous life, and the freedoms it offered her.

“Can we go out tonight?” She asks from her spot at the writing desk, tomes and notes spread around her, glancing up at Katya through the strands of her loose hair. Her Sire sits on one of the couches, carefully shuffling her tarot cards with delicate fingers, and abruptly stops, freezing in place.

“I’m sorry, Evangeline,” Katya replies, unable to look at her, “But not tonight.”

Flipping over the top card, she grimaces at it before quickly shuffling it back into the pile.

“Well, tomorrow then--” She starts.

“No!” Katya interrupts her, turning so sharply to face her that the deck of cards gets thrown in the air, falling to the floor. She swears in Russian, getting to her knees to pick them up.

Without hesitation, she extends shaking fingers towards the mess, willing the blood to extend her reach. The cards hover above the ground, clumsily rearranging themselves into a haphazard pile on the couch cushions. Katya sighs, standing up and walking over to lean on the desk.

She places a finger on Evangeline’s chin, guiding her to look upwards, “It’s not safe for you outside, Evangeline. Know that when I do things, it is only to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” She demands a small unbidden spark of electricity sparking between her fingers.

Katya spots it, arching her brow at the loss of control, “From, well, from everyone, really. They would destroy you on the spot if they found out about you.” She explains, trailing off as she does.

“Who would?” She asks, placing her hand on Katya’s arm.

“Everyone. The Pyramid. The Camarilla,” Katya explains, “You’re not supposed to exist, Evangeline. I-,” she pauses, unable to get the words out, “I made you without permission.”

“Permission?”

“I don’t regret it,” Katya says, palms pressed to Evangeline’s face, “It brought me you.”

She grabs Katya’s wrists, pulling her hands away, “But I’m a prisoner here, Katya.”

Katya seems to contemplate her words, seems to understand her point of view at least. She bites her lip, nods, a tiny drop of blood peaking at the corner of her eye, “Of course. You’re right. I’ll-- I’ll think on it, Evangeline.”

It’s difficult to remain angry at someone you can’t get away from. Katya’s anger drops the next night, along with the topic at hand, and Evangeline follows suit, sweeping her emotions under the rug if only to keep the situation at the apartment manageable. But the feeling still bubbles at the edge of her mind, contained just barely by Katya’s tactful distraction. It boils over when there’s nothing left to cover it, nothing to keep her from lifting up her rose-coloured glasses and looking at her situation with pure, hard, logic.

She shouldn’t be here, kept like a doll in its house. She could leave, she knows, she did it once before, she could do it again.

There are times when she finds herself staring at the front door, thoughts racing through her head, the grating voice telling her to leave and fuck the consequences, burn her if you have to-- but it’s not so simple. Strong and self-assured as she is, Katya is scared of the other Kindred, scared of their power, their abilities, and it is enough to make her stay. To second guess herself, reminded of the fact that she is a newborn in a new, darker world that she has barely begun to understand, and leaving potentially means a more permanent kind of death.

She can’t be angry, she can’t think to leave, so she avoids it altogether.

She walks the line between anger and passivity, teetering between the two with care. Whenever the anger rises, she leaves, gets as far away as she can. She returns to her little reading room, yet is surprised to find it does not provide the same joy it once did when she first found it many months ago. The armchair gives no comfort, the blanket does not warm her skin, the gramophone still needs to be repaired. She can’t even seem to focus on whatever book she decides to read, every thought she has made louder by the horrible voice deep within her.

Before her Embrace, she felt so sure that this was what she wanted, sure enough, that she even attempted to force Katya’s hand rather than leave the choice to her, acting like a child having a tantrum to get her way. So caught in her romanticized opinion of her new existence, she never thought she'd begin to regret it.

Katya is, at least, aware of her ennui, and sympathetic. She admitted she had done wrong, but she provides no attempt to fix it past distraction. There are nights where they don't leave their bed, wrapped up in each other until the daysleep takes then once more. Katya finds new books for her to consume, filled with ancient and supposedly forbidden magics that are so difficult to wrap her head around she could spend weeks studying their text. But these distractions are fleeting, and soon she is back in the reading room, curled up on the armchair.

She doesn't even try to read anymore.

One evening, in the middle of her studies, she finds herself unable to keep her concentration, eyes skimming over the leather-bound tome, but not taking in any information. She sighs, lifting up the front cover from the desk, watching the pages collapse on themselves until she shuts it closed, the lettering of the Latin title staring back at her. She leans down, placing her cheek on top of the book, looking out of the living room windows. It's snowing outside, large clumps of fluffy white falling past her vision. She used to like playing in the snow as a child, throwing herself into snowbanks against her mother's wishes, earning her ire when she came home with her coat and dress soaked through, cold droplets running down her ripped stockings.

"Evangeline?" Katya's voice sounds through the apartment. She doesn't respond, waiting for her Sire to come to her.

"Evangeline?" Katya calls again, her footsteps quietly plodding along the carpet towards the living room, "Ah, there you are. What are we studying tonight?"

"It's snowing outside."

"Hm, it is," her Sire replies coming to kneel down next to her, blocking her view of the window, "It'll be a white Christmas, I'm sure."

"Christmas?" She asks, sitting up in her chair, mentally trying to remember the date.

"Yes, sweet thing, it's only two weeks away," Katya smiles, her hand going to fix Evangeline's hair, "That's actually what I'm here to talk to you about."

She presents a bright red envelope in her hand, placing it on the desk in front of her, "Open it."

The letter itself is addressed to Katya, her name written in impossibly elegant calligraphy. She feels guilty ripping it open to reveal a stark white, single-paged invite.

To whom it may concern,

The Prince of New York

Requests your Presence

For a Christmas Eve

Masquerade Ball

Elysium

10pm

“So?” She finds herself asking, dropping the letter onto the desk.

Katya grabs her hand, leaning on the desk, “Don’t you see? It’s perfect. A masked ball and everyone will be there. Who would notice one extra? You could be lost amongst the crowd, no one would know the wiser.”

“You mean… we could go out together?” She asks with a shy smile, the idea blossoming in her mind, “Like before?”

“Of course, sweet thing. Exactly like before.”