Baby's Breath and Bitter Blooms (Velvet & Kol)

[Velvet]

It was meat.

At least, once upon a life ago it may have been meat. Now it was a corpse and a sad sad one at that. She circled it at first, poked and prodded and then danced away to find a tool to poke further. A stick is a useful tool, she had learned that early in her life. Now it helped her turn bits of what-once-was-meat over so that her gloved hands did not stink and upset the people she would meet after the meat.

Still the meat had secrets to give her, and she would have them to quench her thirst. Trinkets and baubles to pave her cloven way and maybe memories to give her something she couldn't have but wanted. Want want wanted like the sun is craved by the youngest shoots of grass in spring. The sorrow of the thing that had been meat was sad, and she smiled for it. So very sad but life always had sads in it.

It warmed her heart to know.

Crouching and turning over what had been a chest once revealed more and more hidden things to her, long clay red strands of hair clinking and chiming as they collided with one another. She tossed them over her shoulder without a care and only then, a handful of folded papers clutched in her fist did she look and see the figure close and closer yet. It moved and grew closer ever closer and she stood, hooves dainty but sharp and a single blue eye soft and watching.

Whatever lay behind the eyepatch of leather and thread was still and silent, as one might think and eye should be. The sky was broad above and the land rough and broken below. And She stood between. She and this thing coming towards her.

And of course, what had been meat and was no more.

[Kol]

It was the scent of blood, a scent he knew better than any other that drew him. Drew him from the streets where people walked into the deeper shadows. He had been watching them as they came and went quietly. Waiting. Until the scent of blood had risen and drew him like a kite is drawn inevitably on the winds of change.

He let his footsteps fall, the click and snap of hardened sole upon the stone a discordant musical rhythm beneath him until his green eyes could finally find the source of the scent of sang. It rose from a mutilated corpse on the ground, it's chest cavity open to the cool air. His own body was securely wrapped in layers of black cloth. Only a small flicker of white at his collar and the paleness of his face to frame green eyes. He wore a long black fur-lined coat that brushed the edges of his ankles over his usual suit. The collar framed his sharply lined features far more than they were usually framed.

The cooling body was not the only thing in the alley, there was a woman as well. Her hair woven in thick bands of auburn like blood well-dried. He was somewhat interested to note that she stood not on feet but upon hooves, which explained somewhat the doe-like ears that were barely visible around her hair. Her unique legs were of only passing interest however. Particularly with one of her lovely eyes covered by a patch.

A familiar itch crawled over Kol's fingers, his heart giving a solid thump. Crimson stained fingers and oh how he longed to draw back that bit of cloth and find what lay beneath. He drew his black-clad hands from his side and drew one of the gloves off with his teeth to reveal long pale fingers the same color as his face. There was something distinctly dark already growing in those brightly lit green eyes. The slow leviathan roll of creatures stirring beneath the surface.

His other hand held the glove and the one that was bare twisted to touch the coat over his chest somewhat, offering the barest edge of a nodded bow to the woman before him. Kol's green eyes never left her face. Her beautiful blue eye and the cloth that concealed the other from his view. "Bonjour, mademoiselle." The words were slightly deeper than they would have been usually, but as these were the first words he had ever spoken to her, she had no real way of knowing that. Though she might guess from the thick tone of blatant lust.

Kol's body drew itself back up. "You look lovely with crimson on your fingers oui?" The dark-haired man spilled forward, his eyes not even flickering toward the blood that he had mentioned. His long fingers wrapped around her wrist, the grasp strong but not crushing. Still his eyes did not leave hers. Not even as he drew that hand upwards toward his waiting lips.

[Velvet]

It had become a man, a tall and thin one that danced like a child’s broken puppet. She watched as he drew close, listened as he spoke with a deep voice that felt like tar to her fur lined ears. She moved when he bowed to her, bowed like she was a little fairy princess in her tall tall tower. Her head followed his bobbing motion, tipping along and rising so that they remained eye to eye. She wasn’t confused, but curious once again. Who was this?

He spoke again and she blinked. So strange and overwhelmed with lust at just the pile of meat at her hooves? Or was it because she was dancing over this dead thing and that had woken some instinct in his jagged body? Strange, this particular dance.“Do I?” She wondered out loud at the idea. Voice so soft, velvety soft and gentle like a mother’s must be. Could be. Probably should never be.

Then he snatched her hand away and took it towards his mouth and she let him, her fingers with their tough dark nails the color of her hooves hanging limp and passive in his grasp as she tried to sort out this stranger out. “Who are you?” The question was small and large and could have been anything and brought her every answer she could need. Or it could be nothing and leave her only with more questions.

“You want, why is that?” She could feel it, rolling off of him like waves coming to shore. She could understand. She wanted, hungry often and usually left to starve. But there was no reason here, was there? She had not made the body between them, only found it and only just begun to play. Did he want it as well? Or was it what made him need and want so badly?

How very odd. Blue eye watching hypnotizing green.

[Kol]

"Oui." His voice was as smooth as it was deep. Rolling like a dark tide. Her fingers reached his lips and he licked one of them carefully. Tasting the blood that lingered there. It had the taste of resting sang. Cool rather than warm, reminding him of spilled wine. His tongue pulled the crimson into his mouth and down his throat.

Though it was far from pleasant compared to fresh blood Kol was not one to waste, so he delicately licked the blood from her skin like a tall gangling stray cat come to her hand. She did not pull away from him, rather looking at him with that lovely blue eye calmly. Such an interesting woman.

“Who are you?”

Her question drew him slightly away from her skin, his lips a mere breath from them but enough that when his lips moved they did not actually touch her. His words colored always by the small smile that tilted his expression. "I am Kol, Kol Demontry ma ami." Darkness twisted inside of his eyes.

It was more than hunger, hunger was something that touched only the stomach. Kol's desire was a deeper wider thing. It was a lust for a warm body to lay beside his own, to undress that body of everything that gave it physical form, it was the hunger of a wolf mixed with the hunger of a man mingled into the same being. Perhaps even deeper still, as a wolf was never a man, and it did not have the awareness that a man could have. To know that there was an emptiness somewhere that could only be filled for moments at a time.

"To want is to be alive ma ami. You want do you not?" She had reached for the blood just as he might have. He would not have remained with the corpse; dead things had nothing for him in the end, but he would have taken what small amount it could. "I simply do not hide it as some do."

His lips touched her finger again, but this time he bit it ever so gently.

[Velvet]

Laughter filled the alley, soft and surprised all spilling from her mouth like how he had spilled dark desires. “I want, but I am curious.” She needed to see and to know, just as this strange man, Kol, needed to taste and bite. She wondered at the beast that seethed beneath his skin, then turned away to look once more at the dead thing at her feet.

“I need to know what made this man die.” She allowed him to keep a hold of her hand, the other with it’s crumpled papers itching to find and seek. She wanted. To chase and to capture. Or better, to dance and hurt and be hurt as the circle closed ever tighter like a noose of blades. Then her blood would flow and then she would be alive again,

Alive to more than those that saw her and those she saw.

“Kol Demontry. You want me, my flesh and bones and blood, yes?” She looked up at him and then back to the meat that was ever waiting for her. Calling with a voice so small and distant perhaps only she could hear it anymore. “You cannot. Not until I know what made this dead and gone.” Perhaps the blood drinker knew, maybe his answers would give her the first step, the long winding climb to the top where the jagged edges could fill her up once again.

The papers in her hand were useless, the final words of meat gone cold in the winter snows. What had broken this body but not taken it away? Why not eat or take or steal? Fingers abandoned paper for what had been a head, skull broken and missing the bits that made it whole.

That she could pick it up and leave the body behind was a note she made, blue eye turning and seeing the shape of what had once been.

[Kol]

Curiosity was a thing which Kol could understand. He did not understand why something dead would hold her curiosity, but he could only assume that it was a thing which he did not know. If the body called for her to understand it in the way that her eye patch called for him to reveal its nature and purpose than he could find no fault in her effort to quench her curiosity.

If the challenge was to determine the source of death before they were distracted by other things he could certainly be patient. "Oui. I will assist you then yes?" It was not precisely a question, and it did not sound like one so much as an offer that he completely intended to make good upon.

The dark haired man let his green eyes slide over the corpse. Once a body was dead it held little interest to him, but death was something he was as intimately familiar with as a man could be while still living. From what he could tell at first glance this body had been dead for some time as the taste of blood had told him already. From that he also knew that there was nothing in the body which would have led to its death. Not poison or sickness. Both of which his keen palette would have picked up upon.

It was more likely that the bent rib cage or the lack of connection between head and body were the cause of death. He bent enough to look closely at the bones. "Animals have come and gone." There were marks that were not human teeth but teeth just the same. In the city there were plenty of scavengers looking for food. "But they would not have gone for this spot if it was not open before."

The marks of whatever had caused the original injury were obscured by what the animals had done, but it was... familiar to him in a way. He rose to his feet once more and pulled his other glove off, tucking it safely into his pocket and letting his eyes fall upon the head. He smiled a little and lifted his eyes to the woman holding it. "I believe it was torn apart ma ami." He shifted his fingers. "By one strong enough to do this."

[Velvet]

The explanation brought forth by the stranger next to her made Velvet sigh sweetly, her fingers brushing through the head in her hand’s hair. “Good,” She murmured and looked over the chewed upon remains of the face, with its missing nose and eyes ruins. “Good, look at how the little ones have fed already. They took what the one who wanted didn’t.”

The skull was dropped and abandoned to her as she bent further to the body, hands small and delicately boned dancing along the shattered ribs and cavernous torso. She looked up and up at the sky peeking through the buildings around them, back to green eyes that seemed lit with a noxious fire. A placid blue ocean colored eye blinked at him before she tilted her head like a bird to see more of the damage lying deep inside. “It was hungry. Hungry and it was cold. Did you walk through the snow, Kol Demontry? Was it thick and brittle?”

She did not look at him as she asked her question, her fingers inside and seeking like the thing that was meat might have more secrets for her. So much of the meat had been given away, so many of the bones broken and gnawed but left behind. Why why why, something strong that needed food would have taken the meat away.

Snow was falling around them fat flakes that shushed and whispered as it fell around her dark-clothed shoulders and onto the mass of chords that was her hair. The wetness made the golden trinkets shine like they were lit from within. She let the wetness soak her through, humming a soft lullaby and letting her body shake to warm itself.

Her hands were still, finally pulled free from the ruins between them. She brushed them idly over the tears of what had been clothing, leaving a dark trail and then none at all. “Young,” She murmured. “Young and teaching them to feed. Of course there would be waste.” She smiled at Kol then, her lips uncovering teeth that had the barest points where perhaps they should not. “It’s winter.” She finally said with joy. They had come down from the mountains.

“And it stormed in the night.” The snow had been thick and furious, inns full and the press of warm bodies welcome to most. She had been in a small room, the chill winds a song to her soft furred ears. She had sung with it.

Spoiler:

[Kol]

Her question made him consider, and he thought about his answer carefully. It was not often that he thought of things that were past, they were usually unimportant details that held no meaning in the present. To think of them was as purposeless as to think of a future that could change as quickly as a thought. However he made that effort now, thinking of the snow on the ground and how it had felt beneath his feet as he made ruin of its perfection with each and every step.

"Oui. It was fresh snow, crisp on the surface and soft below." Like snow that had frozen over quickly; a quick harsh fall of whiteness. Her words were strange untethered things when she was not speaking to him. Filled with unspoken thoughts that he could not know. He felt a small flicker of curiosity, his green eyes flickering away for a moment to scour the area around them.

A hungry thing had come and gone. Wanting for a taste of flesh and leaving these remnants in its wake. A wasteful creature... teaching others to feed? His eyes returned to where she remained crouched over the body and she smiled at him. His own smile spread at the sight, but he did not know the source of her pleasure. Only that there was a hint of discovery to it. Perhaps she had found her answer in the midst of thoughts that he could not hear.

"Oui." He agreed with her easily. It was winter, and the fresh snow was proof enough of the weather. "Did you find what you were looking for ma ami?"

[Velvet]

“Oh yes, I’ve found the answer.” She looked down at the filthy blood and ruined body before she stood and turned away from it. A single eye searching and seeking, noting that the world around her had begun to stir from its chilled slumber. It was dangerous now to caress this thing now, when soon people would come and cry and wail at the loss of life. Velvet did not bother to wait for them to point their fingers at her, instead her narrow hooves danced her away once more, heedless and heartless as the body behind her.

There were mountains in in her sight, far but close if one could find the right ways. But it would be well into the hush of night before her hands would clasp the towers of nature and danger. She smiled again, pushing her thick hair back over her shoulder. “It’s time to hunt now, Kol Demontry. You can leave if you do not want to come.” Her fingers touched the bottom of the leather patch with it’s golden embossing. Soothing a demon only she could see.

There was hardly a breath between her words and her actions, walking forwards where the mountains rose before her and called with their jagged teeth snapping at the sky. There was blue to be seen, endless pale blue sky that promised cold enough to break glass bones. Velvet smiled at it all, her lungs filled with shattering and the air filled with the soft music of her hair.

[Kol]

Kol tilted his head in curiosity, wondering what it was that she had been looking for and what it was that she had then found. She did not tell him that secret however. She simply stood there silently and the curiosity of it itched along his skin much like his ever-growing need to find out what she was hiding beneath that eye patch. She moved around the body, and he moved enough to stand slightly beside and behind her.

His fingers twitched at his side, watching her's lift to touch the very cloth that he wanted to touch. The only thing that stayed him was the fact that she spoke just then, distracting him with a possibly worth more than sating his momentary curiosity. That could wait.

"I will remain then ma ami, I would enjoy joining you for your hunt yes?" He shifted just a touch closer. He could almost smell her scent above that of death, decay, and blood which hovered thickly in the cold winter air.

For now he would willingly follow her anywhere, into the mountains, into the darkness, into this frigid winter night. Though as she turned back around and led him his mind slipped easily into those darker things. He did not know what they were hunting, but he knew that it would end in a spill of blood.

He could not help but wonder what hers would taste like.

[Velvet]

She led him away like a pied piper, her hooves quiet in the unbroken snow, but her hair brilliant and sparkling for all the ornaments that danced within its thick strands. Out around them the day was breaking, and she broke a trail up to the foothills of the mountains that cupped the little town. Up and up, she danced and climbed and watched him follow her, her voice soft and warm with praise for his ability to keep up. It was when they paused, the town small and the people no more than scurrying insects that she turned to him with her blue eye curious.

“You came this far, Kol. You came for the hunt and the hunger that follows I think. But there is more between, and I wonder if you can stand this part.” She blinked at him, tipping her head and seeming to ponder her own words before she smiled at him, warm and excited. “Perhaps it won’t matter. Do you want to see then? You will either way.”

Her fingers came up and around her head, moving her mass of hair out of her way as she found what she was seeking. The clasp around her eye came away, the leather sliding and the mass of soaked linens behind it falling to the white white snow where the red drew the eye.

And yet her eye drew the eye more than a bit of blood and leather ever could. Pearly white, as if there was a stone there in place of the mate the to blue iris watching him now. Smooth and unblemished and weeping slowly, red even now creeping down her cheek now free to follow it’s path down. She watched him, her head tilted to the side as a bird’s might as she waited for his reaction. Waited and now seemed to see him more than ever before. Through him to the depths where his nightmares lived.

She smiled, her fangs sharp.

[Kol]

Whatever dark dreams had lain in Kol's mind, whatever faint imaginings had flickered there - none for Kol was not imaginative enough to imply what might lay beyond the covering of dark material emblazoned with gold symbol - it was crushed in the face of the reality. Even as her fingers found the way to undo the eye patch his heart beat with a sturdier rhythm; anticipation that blinded him to his earlier thoughts of the hunt he had promised to follow her into.

His expression softened into one of awe. It transfixed him.

Her eye was the purest color of the snow on the ground around them. Not a hint of blue or gray. It was empty and clean, unknowable. The scent of blood was there in the air. Where it fell in the bandages that helped keep the patch from flooding, to the crimson tear that slipped down her tanned cheek with loving care for its curves.

Kol had come for the hunt. For the hunt of whatever it was that she was hunting, for his slow hunt of her, and the secret laying there in the darkness before her pure white eye. "C'est beau." His voice was thick, and he let out a breath purely so that he could breathe in the scent of her blood freed into the air.

Perhaps another would have been drawn to linger on that pure white eye, but Kol's green eyes followed the crimson drop. He could not help but to step forward, to capture that fresh rosy tear and bring it to his lips like the sweet sacred treasure that it was. Long pale fingers slid over her cheek, seeming paler by comparison to the cocoa color of her skin. "Merci ma Rouge." He smiled in his way, full of bottomless hunger, with pleasure, and yet empty. "I will follow you, in this hunt or in another. Show me every-thing."

His thumb spilled over her cheek, caressing this precious woman before him ever so gently. When he kissed her lips it was just as gentle. He meant every word.

He always did.

[Velvet]

It was a kiss tainted by the copper between them. From one tongue to the next it bloomed and vanished as she allowed the intrusion. She neither moved away nor towards him, her eyes watching his face the entire time their breath and lips shared one another. Only when he drew back did she move, running her tongue between her teeth as if to scrape it clean.

Or to taste the violence in their mouths anew.

“Good,” She smiled at him, the crimson weeping down her cheek a steady stream that seeped into her collar and vanished in the dark material there. “Because I am taking you into the monster’s lair. And I want. To taste their sin. Their choices.” The mild twist of her lips turned savage for a moment and then smoothed away, dark tipped fingers reaching up and caressing his cold cheek. Her hand was warm, the scent of leather and dirt faint and clinging above the decay she had so recently explored.

And then she bent to gather her soiled bandages, her sharpened hooves digging into the frozen snow as she turned and lead him once more. Up and up, following a trail only she seemed to see. Her red blood dripping down and leaving a scent in the air that clung to their throats.

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