Chapter 51: Really, Mommy Issues again?
It is an irregular day for Manasseh, the vampire merchant. Ah, now just a vampire....well, half a vampire. The blood-seeking fiend who sat amongst beside a window sighed a breath of frost to leave behind an unfeeling fog that scathed her heart, frost laylines beneath her throat pulsing of magic stolen, mana interwining to form shared breaths of warring humanity and vengeful vampirism, as her sharpened bond with mana braided her eyes to the truth that braided itself to the truth.
Their kins....those damning runes of Adil...they all deactivated. Manasseh remarked as her eyes narrowed, the silk no longer proving its function to protect her, as the itch that came with stepping on the rune hollowed out with a non-sensation, her human-like sense of mana, so used to the whispers of grief from the vampires that were robbed rest, now ceased as the last vampire coiled towards itself, the emptiness without a purpose was like a heartbeat forgetting to skip, and she hated...hated this drumming heartbeat so much, she could rip her heart out and tear it to shred.
Marred by her bloodlust towards the tinted sense of her own unwanted ’humanity’, the vampire seethed her teeth before opening to invite another cookie in from the table. ’Cherry’s Bliss’. A restaurant whose title would have the witch Demond fuming and stomping her legs pouting, had teas and cookies fitting the high noble’s taste, as Manasseh crunched on the snack, each crumbs sprayed in her tongue reminding her of the sickly sensation that would come with a human’s anger, yet the constrasting sweetness encoded a memory deep inside her that she was ever eager to visit again.
Manasseh’s blue-tinted eyes darted at the pink hues that surrounded the cookie in her hand, its dishonesty golden-brown edges and soft centers belied the unique formulas embedded within, a promise of seduction for guests, a taboo-like secret that resulted in no harm. The cookie is a spell, literally, As Manasseh chewed and closed her eyes, the pinky hues seeped like soft tendrils around her chest and lungs, her hips craddled by a warmth unasked for but fully welcomed, as she leaned in for an embrace with no one.
The cold sensation that came spoke of not indifference, but of a towering mother that waited for her child amidst the countless centuries of blizzard, as the child quietly vowed to finally, finally bring the peace, the resolution to her clan’s impairment, the rotted pain, suffering and futility that followed were merely waved off in the blizzard by the innocent child. Wait for me, she told her mother. I will not allow the vampire’s era to end as a footnote in a historian’s page.
...yet look at her now. The sweetness of that innocence merely gorged out the somber bitterness from the lone vampire, the loved one she made a promise to was no longer with her, her noble dream burnt to the ground with embers that ground the vampires into dusts. And now....even her final duty, as the last Daughter of the Bloodhound, robbed and humiliated, the disenchanted runes spoke of only her family’s release, yet merely retained an abyssal chain of irony and cruelty for the vampire merchant who sacrificed all to release her kins’ sufferings.
The cookies sat quietly within her hand, the pinkly hue between her fingertip giggled of the addiction that knew it served its purpose. Manasseh sighed, the indifferent fog on the window forever taunting how she suffered the fate of a human, to worry and to be emptied, as she invited another cookie into her mouth.
The sweetness...for the first time, it almost seemed too overwhelming.
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