Closed Beauty and The Beast [Caela Dorin]

[Thannis Daraktheon]

She laughed at them. A weird, off-colour manic laugh and it ran right through him. Something about the laughter irked him. For a moment he couldn't place it but then he remembered. It was laughter; it was ridicule; that had put him in this place in the first place. Had he not been so fuming over his peers in the Zeltivan University he wouldn't have had that lapse in concentration that had caused him to Void himself. Her next comment sounded snippy to him but it was disarmed with a nervous giggle. She was clearly still in shock. She wasn't laughing at him. She wasn't.

His words of concern after helping her up were shrugged off. He let go of her hand with a measure of hurt feeling. He'd just been trying to help. He could have left her here unconscious for any old lowlife to come across. He might not have been able to bring himself to do any worse but he certainly could have helped a lot less and she was being snippy with him. Her tone hurt him. He didn't hear her tone of curiosity. He didn't hear any tone in her voice. Her laughter had shaken something loose. The grinds weren't fully turning anymore. He was hearing the worst in every word she said and those final questions caused something to snap.

“Why am I so worried?” Thannis asked in a low, dangerous voice. “What do you mean to me?” He looked up at her and jabbed a finger at her and then at himself as he spoke. Thannis grunted and turned away. He took a step. He took another. “[b]I'm not a monster.” He said in an unusally level tone. His back was still turned to her but he was close enough that the quiet night air would carry his words to her. He turned. He glared. “Shouldn't I care?” Thannis beseeched her quietly. His eyes softened. “Remember when I threw a mug at that guy? In the tavern where you were dancing? That was how we met. Well we didn't really meet and introduce ourselves later but that was the first time. Why did I do that?” His question wasn't meant to be answered. His voice was level and even but he didn't leave a gap enough to answer. “Why do people ever do anything? I mean why should I have helped you? I'm a man. Do I love you? No. I don't love you. I don't want anything from your body. I'm sure it's nice but no. Did I want something from you? No. What would I even want from you? No, nothing. So you tell me, Caela. Why aren't you dead? Huh?”

Thannis turned away again without even waiting for an answer. He didn't know why he cared about Caela. He didn't know why he'd even attempted to save her that first time. He didn't know why her blood had once become so irresistable to him. He didn't ache for his blood like he had before but he didn't know if that was just because he wasn't particularly in the mood right now.

“[b]You keep me living I think.” He replied out of the blue. “You remind me of beauty. You remind me of thos parts of the human experience that aren't of the flesh. That part of living that has nothing to do with actually being alive.” There was a crate next to him. He sat himself down on top of it so that he was half facing Caela. He still didn't look directly at her. “I can't hurt you. I won't. You can run if you like. If you stay... I'll tell you everything and you can still run; if you don't like what you hear. Stay, leave, kill, forget. It's up to you.” He said all of this staring straight ahead up the alley. His words were just as even as before but sincerity rang in them because they were sincere.

Credit to Skerry

[Caela Dorin]

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Any warnings that might have shown up in his face about his change of mood were completely missed by the dancer. She extricated herself from his grasp and the man let her so there had been no sign of an imminent angry outburst. It was only when he spoke and she found that his tone had changed did the blonde truly look at him and see the change that had come over him. Again she found herself afraid of him, frozen in place this time so there was no hopes of escape. If he wanted to do anything to her then she was just as easy a target as she had been when she was unconscious.

Caela shrank internally from that voice and it wasn't until he turned away that her body responded in kind, the dancer pressing herself into the wall, wishing that she could go through it.

"I'm not a monster."

It was as if he'd been reading her thoughts and for one horrible moment she wondered if it was possible. She'd often wondered if Jillene could do it, her ability to pick out the subjects on Caela's mind frighteningly uncanny. Her mind flickered to the idea of magic as it always did when she thought that way but she still had no idea if such a thing was possible or if it was just a product of her paranoid mind. Magic went out of her head entirely when he turned again to glare at her this time. The blonde flinched from the look, head jerking backwards in an involuntary movement that had her head whacking off the wall. Shockwaves bounced through her skull, tears brought to the corners of her eyes as spots floated across her vision. The spots passed and she was just left with the growing through at the back of her skull.

His gaze had softened when she was next able to focus on him. He began to throw questions at her, the blonde's head moving in response although words seemed to fail her right now, tongue heavy and uncooperative in her mouth. Nod. Yes, she remembered. Nod. Yes, she knew what she had been doing. Shake. She had no idea why he'd done it. Pity? Possibly but she wasn't capable of any sort of thought right now. Thannis had acquired all of her attention, her brain too sluggish with fear to think about anything much right now.

The man just kept right on talking, Caela remaining exactly where she was although she didn't react openly anymore. She wasn't sure that he was really talking to her anymore. He seemed to be mostly talking to himself, setting things straight in his own head. His question at the end startled her, the dancer not fully comprehending it. There was no way of judging anything from Thannis because he'd turned away again without pausing to hear the answer. She didn't have one. Was he asking why he hadn't killed her or why she hadn't gotten herself killed already? The former only he could answer and the latter she had no answer to. She just survived somehow and she never examined the reasons behind it too closely in case that brought her luck to an end and her life with it.

His words were strange then, nonsensical to the dancer. How did she keep him living? They hardly knew each other, she was nothing special, no great inspiration that would keep him going on. What part of living was there if you weren't alive? If you were dead then there was no more living. It made no sense unless there was some cryptic meaning, one that her brain was too muddled to try to find. What was everything that he had to tell? And what was she supposed to kill if he told her? Was she suggesting that she kill him?

There was some alarm now in the young woman's gaze although Thannis couldn't see it; he wasn't looking at her. A hesitant step brought her away from the wall, a step closer to him. "What are you talking about, Thannis? You aren't making any sense do you know that? If by everything you mean that you'll explain all of this to me then I could really do with an explanation. I'm seriously in the dark here, figuratively and literally." She took another step towards him, not quite daring to stand within a range where he could reach out and touch her. She had no idea how suddenly his temperament could change again and she wasn't going to risk being too close if it did.

"Go ahead. Tell me. I'll hear you out. I'm not going to run away. Promise. As long as you don't try to smash my head in or something then I have no problem staying."
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[Thannis Daraktheon]

Of course he wasn't making any sense. How could he be making sense to her? That's why he needed to tell her. He needed to tell her everything and then it would make sense. It would make sense but the conclusion she would draw from it would be her own. When she saw the truth would she shun him? Thannis couldn't know.

He glanced at her sideways for a brief moment. She wasn't up against the wall any more but she wasn't close either. Thannis wouldn't want to get close to himself either if he'd seen what she had. Thannis sighed and stared straight ahead again. “Did I ever tell you I came from Zeltiva?” He asked still not looking at her and continuing before she really had the time to answer. “It's a nice city. Lots of fish, a few scholars; mostly nice people. My family were Voiders. It's a magical art. There exists a sort of cosmic trash dump called the Void and Voiders can open portals to it. My family got rid of Zeltivan waste by sending it out to the Void. Good money but not an altogether popular job.”

Thannis smiled a moment as his parents entered his minds eye. He still loved them. He couldn't always picture them and often it was too shameful to even think of them. They probably thought he was dead or had run away. He could never go back to them. Even if he did go back to them they wouldn't recognise this form; if he managed to convince them it was him there'd still be yet many questions he feared to answer. He didn't deserve parents any more. He'd failed them the moment he hadn't taken death like he should have.

“Anyway I'm a Voider too. My parents taught me how to do it. I was meant to follow in their footsteps and I was quite happy too but I needed to learn Glyphing which is a kind of theoretical magical discipline that channels and focusses other kinds of magics. So I went to the University. Enrolled in a Glyphing course but as I said before Voiding isn't too popular. My family was well off but not as well off as a lot of the kids there. I was picked on. I was bullied. I felt hurt but I attended my lessons, practised my Voiding and continued.” Thannis retelling of this part of the story was dry. The wounds there were scars now. They didn't hurt any more. They were just there. Only in certain moments did the very thought of those students make him mad with rage.

“Well that was all fine and dandy until one day I was practicing my Voiding. It was just like any other day of practice really except they'd been laughing at me earlier. I... I couldn't really get it out of my head. I was practicing Push and Pull which is to say you will the portal to pull things into it or push them out of it. Caught up in my rage I caused a Pull in the wrong place and before I knew it I was tumbling into the darkness.” Thannis buried his head in his hands for a moment. “Oh, the Void is a terrible place. It's nothingness. It's cold, it'd dark, there's nowhere to stand. It's just nothing except for all of those things people have been dumping in it for centuries. This would include strange, immortal monsters too. Oh and there's no oxygen to breathe. If you're a normal person Voiding is fatal almost instantaneously.”

Thannis glanced at her again. He'd gotten to the important part of his tale. It was how he worded the rest that would probably set her mind for all time on the issue. “But I didn't die. I was alive; floating alone and afraid in the darkness. Such incomprehensible nothingness. It still scares me. I still see it in the night... I was alive though and left now only to contemplate the faste that had lead me there. I was angry. I was so angry. It was this guys and that guys fault I cursed and shouted and ranted and cried. I didn't want to die.” He glanced sidelong at her again and repeated “I didn't want to die.”

“But I'd been wrong about something. I was floating. I was afraid. I wasn't alone. A voice spoke to me. I thought it was a monster. I aked what it was, what it's intentions were. It laughed and probed me with questions instead. It asked me who I was and I said it didn't matter. I was dead. My fate was inevitable but then he said the strangest thing. He asked me why that was such a bad thing. I told him it was the end of me. I'd never see my parents again or know the life I could have lived but he said that wasn't true. He said that death didn't have to be the end. I was curious. I was desperate I enquired further. You might imagine, or emulate right now, my surprise when the creature told me he was none other than a God. He introduced himself as 'the God of Undeath, Uldr'. I'm sure you've heard of him.” Thannis didn't glance at her this time. He didn't want to know. He just hand to continue with his story. “He stirred up my fury at my unnecessary death, he manipulated my feelings and then he offered me the only thing I thought I wanted at that moment. He offered me a second chance and... I took it.”

He couldn't afford to be quiet or take his time any more. He had to finish it before Caela interrupted him or left so he began his finale with gusto “[b]Uldr killed me anyway. He'd been keeping me alive somehow I think. So he took away whatever had been doing that and I felt the chill and found I could no longer breathe and I died. It was a terrible feeling. I didn't stay dead for long. Dira didn't have a chance to get her hands on my soul. The spark of life returned to me and my body began to change. My whole body changed and it hurt. Oh Gods it hurt like nothing you could ever imagine. He destroyed all traces of my mortal body and gave me this one. I... I had brown hair before. So he gave me this body with it's supernatural strength and remarkably sharp teeth and brougfht me out of the Void here.” Thannis ran a hand through his bleach blonde hair thoughtfully. “People aren't meant to be brought back from the dead. They're meant to reincarnate. They're meant to live another life. I'm cursed. I'm stagnant. I don't breathe, I don't eat or drink and I don't even sleep. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what Uldr wants from me...” He glanced sidelong at her. “That's not even the worst of it.”

[Caela Dorin]

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It immediately became clear that the man was going to give some sort of long back story. She assumed that everything he said would have some eventual point to it even if it wasn't immediately apparent so she listened patiently. The true explanation would come soon but first she would have to hear all of the background.

He hadn't mentioned Zeltiva to her before but then there hadn't been much of a chance for it to some up in conversation. Odd that she should meet two Zeltivans so close together, first Palaren a few days ago in the bathhouse - probably best to dwell on that one - and now Thannis. If she met any more of them soon, she might just take it as a sign that she was supposed to look into the city of her mother's birth a bit more closely.

The subject of magic had her attention. Voiding was not something that she had ever heard of but then she knew so little about magic that it was hardly surprising. It didn't sound like a fun job though, waste disposal. At least it showed a practical use for the magical arts, one that Sunberth could really use but alas the city's denizens had such a distrust of the arcane that it was likely to remain a festering pile of shyke forever. Caela could understand how it would be lucrative as well. If you didn't want to put up with all of the shyke that naturally accumulated then of course you'd gladly pay someone to get rid of it for you. If magic took its toll on one's energy like manual labour did then you'd have to have a very fair wage.

Glyphing was another magical discipline that magic seemed to have an acquaintance with and she realised with a jolt that what he was telling her could bring a Sunberthian mob down on his head. She didn't approve or disapprove of magic but there was no way for the man to know that so he probably saw telling her all this as him taking an immense risk. If she had been anybody else who hadn't been brought up with two opposite views on the arcane then he would no doubt have guaranteed his death. No wonder he had thought that she might run away or kill him. The dancer wasn't frightened by all these magical disciplines that Thannis could use - okay maybe a little bit - but found it all quite interesting.

It was a lot to wrap her head around though when she didn't understand any of this. They sounded straightforward enough. Glyphing to channel and focus different magics and Voiding to throw things away into some sort of empty space. She wondered if the Void was similar to the way the Ukalas had once been described to her as another world that somehow connected into Mizahar.

Despite her attempts to absorb all the facts in a clinical way, she was becoming caught up in the man's story. He'd been bullied. They'd looked down on him because his family dealt with their filth for them. Bloody ungrateful vagiks is what they were! They wouldn't have felt so high and mighty if they'd been left wallowing in their messes or had had to deal with it themselves. It must have been difficult so difficult for him in that place and she wondered how he'd managed to stick it. Then things seemed to have gone so wrong for him, despair seeming to take hold of him now as he buried his face in his hands. He'd ended up in the Void. Well obviously there was a way out of it or he wouldn't be here but she doubted that it would have been a pleasant experience. She was beginning to pity him terribly although how this could possibly be connected with the presence situation baffled her.

"If you're a normal person Voiding is fatal almost instantaneously.”

Those sunk in gradually, her mind making some effort to protect her from the full implications of them but the meaning got through. Pity became confusion and confusion became horror. If you ended up in the Void, you died. Thannis had ended up in the Void, which meant that he should be dead. Why wasn't he dead?! Somehow he'd survived, something that no normal person seemed to be able to do.

He glanced her way presumably to gauge her reaction. He must know how that sounded, he must know that this was the point in his tale that was most likely to baffle and horrify her. Why else would he have chosen then to look at her before he explained? Judging how she would take the full explanation of course. It seemed likely to be an unbelievable one for sure.

A shudder went through her as he described what he had come across in the nothingness. She could appreciate the horror of the place. The cold, the dark, finding something there and not knowing what it was but all the while waiting to die and wanting to live. How he'd come out of it seemed a mystery? Had the thing in the dark helped him somehow. The revelation that it was a god seemed a surreal one. It was something that you came across in tales, people who met gods and were granted favours. They didn't actually exist though, not really. They were just stories meant for children, weren't they?

He seemed to take it for granted that she'd know who he was talking about, that she'd actually believe that he had met the God of... Undeath?! The dancer found herself staring at him as if he'd lost his marbles. How on earth could there be such a thing as undeath? You couldn't die and then undie although there were rumours that such things could happen on Sahova. Those were just stories too though. There weren't really sick parodies of life walking around on that island, there was no such thing. This Uldr sounded like a sick joke. The rest of the tale came out in a rush, still as surreal as it had started to be once a god had come into the picture. Thannis could not have died and then come back. That wasn't possible, even gods... They might be able to do that but they wouldn't. That would be sick.

As unbelievable as it all seemed, her mind was trying to make her believe that it was true but offering evidence to the contrary at the same time. How strong had she thought him to be, how unnaturally strong mere chimes ago? Had she seen him breathing, heard it? No. After the murder he'd committed he should have been panting but then she hadn't been all that focused at the time so maybe he had been. He'd been drinking in the tavern when they'd met so he obviously could drink. Caela wanted to scream from the sheer frustration of trying to decipher it all. It was some horrible tale that he'd spun, one that didn't explain anything at all.

And yet his final words hooked her.

It was like every story that she'd ever heard. A prompt. His words lured her in, tempted her to ask the question that would so readily spring to mind when one heard them. She had to ask, even if she didn't believe. It had to be asked because she was compelled to do it as wrapped up in the thing as she was.

"What's the worst of it?"
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[Thannis Daraktheon]

For the most part Thannis' sidelong glances had been treating him to a view of a Caela who seemed to understand his story. She didn't persecute him for using magic though, if she had baulked at the mention of that he might have laughed. She seemed angry or supportive when he told her about the other students at the University. She seemed to be sympathetically horrified when he told her of the Void. When he told her of his terrifying experience there. Then of course he had launched into the final leg of his story and had refused to look back at her until he was almost finished. Until the only thing that was left to tell was the biggest thing of all.

Thannis turned his head to look directly at her when she asked the question. She was eager, horrified, intrigued, curious. So many different emotions were splayed across her face but Thannis was no master of people he could only really guess. “I... There's a punishment.” He replied hesitantly still looking directly at her. “I must... I must... Dring- Dring-k b-b-b-” Thannis tore his gaze away from her and leapt to his feet at the opposite end of the crate from where Caela was. He couldn't be near her. He couldn't tell her. Even if she could make her peace with him being an undead monstrosity would she ever forgive him his deadly urge.

He closed his eyes and tried to take deep meaningful breaths. The kind he had once had cause to use in his Voiding training. “I have no life, Caela. My body is kept together by foul, Godly magic. There is... There's a price to be paid for that. I cannot simply exist in misery. I must... I must take from people the thing that I am missing.” Thannis turned to her. He moved back to the crate. He didn't look as agitated anymore. “Do you have a knife or dagger? Don't worry I'm not intending to hurt you with it. I need to show you something. Actually...” He bent down to kneel on the ground and put out one arm palm to the sky on to the crate. “Cut me. Run a dagger along my arm or across it. Go on. I don't mind.”

noteThannis has no blood.

[Caela Dorin]

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Her question drew his attention back to her, the man seemingly trying to read the emotions on her face. She wondered what he was seeing or rather thought that he was seeing because she had no idea what way her emotions were right now. Scattered would probably be the best description, or perhaps that was her thoughts. The dancer didn't even know. She was just a bundle of nerves waited for an answer that was both eagerly anticipated and feared. What if he was being completely serious? What if there really was something worse then going to a place of death, of making a deal with a horrible god and being reincarnated in a new form?

His words were hesitant now, difficult to get out. The horror of what he was going to tell her was either overwhelming him or else he didn't know how to phrase it. Maybe it was both. A punishment, something that had been placed upon him for accepting life over death. It made sense that it would come at some sort of price. Gods weren't known to give opportunities to mortals without something added into the bargain. Perhaps it was unwavering faith, for others it might have been to do the god's bidding but Thannis didn't know what Uldr wanted from him. A game for the god's amusement then? Something that had been done with the knowledge that the former Voider would choose life? If he had chosen to die instead then Uldr would have only lost a chance of sport, nothing more. So why not attach something horrific so that he could watch the torment that it caused the man before her? It must be terrible for him to stutter over it so and as God of Undeath, Uldr was likely to have some nasty things up his divine sleeves.

The man moved from her once more so clearly tortured by the idea of unloading her secret upon her. Whatever it was he was afraid of it, shamed by it even and he didn't want her to know but whatever it was he wanted her to be made aware of it. Maybe it explained what she had seen take place here this night. Was he forced to kill people? But no, he had said that he needed to drink something or Caela thought that he had. He couldn't drink though so how could that work.

The call for a knife made the dancer's eyes widen but she didn't relax even when he gave his reassurances. Instead of calming her, he horrified her more with what he was asking her to do. Did he want her to kill him? Surely not. If godly magic held him then surely a ditsy blonde with a knife couldn't free him from its clutches. What if it was a kindness though and one that was in her power? Was it fair for her to withhold mercy from him? She was compassionate, it wasn't something that she could hold back from him if that was what he was asking for. Yet there was no way for her to kill another.

He isn't really alive, she reminded herself as she reached with a shaky hand for the dagger sheathed at her waist. If he wanted her to kill him then he wouldn't have made his arm the target. Maybe he would heal and be unharmed where the blade touched him. Whatever way it would work she believed in her own deduction. If he intended death then he wouldn't have chosen his arm so if she did this to him he would somehow be fine.

The blade was extended and raised, wavering up and down despite her efforts to hold it steady. One hand rested tentative and trembling on his arm while the other descended so that the tip of the blade could kiss his flesh. Touching the side of his inner elbow nearest to his body, the blade was dragged diagonally downwards. The skin parted beneath the dagger's tip but that was all. The point hovered over the rent skin as she stared at the wrongness that was the cut. It didn't look right. On her own arm it would have been deep, it would have gushed blood but on him there was absolutely nothing. He didn't bleed! He didn't have blood... and he had to take something from people that he didn't have himself. Her mind was reaching a conclusion but she shied from it.

The weapon dropped from her fingers as she took a step backwards, putting distance between herself and the impossible. Shaking her head, wild green eyes fell on his face searching for the answer there and hoping that it wouldn't be the one that her mind was trying to tell her. In a small voice she asked a question that was filled with more dread than the last one.

"Why don't you bleed?"
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[Thannis Daraktheon]

She was hesitant. Of course she was hesitant. It was not often someone asked you to cut them up. In fact it was an insane thing to ask of anybody and Thannis was starting to feel like this clearly wasn't the right way to tell her. He couldn't tell her himself though. He just couldn't say the words. She'd have to come up with it herself. She was a smart girl. She was, perhaps, not fully using her own mental faculties but she had to. She just had to.

She unsheathed a dagger from her waist. Thannis wondered why it hadn't come out sooner. She had barely tried to defend herself all night even before she knew it was him. He was just a monster to her. Wouldn't any normal person try to slay a monster? She wasn't a coward. The first night he'd saw her she'd demonstrated that. The unfortunate groper hadn't stood a chance against her fury. You didn't need skill when you had fury like that.

Thannis winced as the blade tore his flesh. The cuts were clean, however, and Thannis almost wondered how many times Caela had cut flesh before. The flesh underneath the cut wasn't even red, it was pale like the flesh above, and no blood came from it. This was one of the first things Thannis had noticed about his new body. He did not bleed. This had lead to Thannis concluding that the reason he felt the need for other's blood was because he lacked it. After all there were no books on being Undead and Uldr had explained virtually nothing to him. Thannis could only make his own conclusions about such things.

He hadn't looked at her face yet. He'd been staring down at the cuts. He needed to see reaction though. He needed to see her figure it out. He looked up just in time to see her drop the dagger. She was taking a step back. She looked confused, horrified, unable to accept the truth. So, she'd figured it out. She looked like she regretted figuring it out. She was looking to him shaking her head like that would make it not so. Thannis didn't know how to respond to that but the truth was all over his face.

When she asked the question Thannis looked away. She knew. She just didn't want to believe it. What could he say? What would make her believe? Did he even want her to believe? “Everything that lives, bleeds. Even plants have fluids like blood. I'm just... Just a Monster. Monster's don't bleed.” He confessed quietly.

[Caela Dorin]

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His words didn't put her mind at ease, not in the slightest. He'd said nothing to turn her mind from the conclusion that it had drawn, one that she really didn't want to believe. He didn't bleed, he had no blood, that wasn't normal. There was no way to doubt anything that he'd said to her tonight. He didn't have a normal body, a natural body and so the one in his possession could only belong to the realm of the supernatural and the gods. This Uldr had no doubt killed him and returned him to something not quite like life. He had really died or was dead right now. Maybe it was better to call him unalive or undead. Undead sounded better in her mind if such a thing could sound better.

She was getting hung up on that little matter of how to describe his state because Caela didn't want to dwell on what that state meant, on the thing that he lacked. He had said the word drink, she knew he had but the implications of that one word led to truly horrifying possibilities. It wasn't taking a lot for her mind to jump to that conclusion but it wasn't one that she wanted to reach at all.

If she hadn't interrupted Thannis in the act of murder then would he have gone on to... "You don't, please tell me that you don't," she moaned. To anyone listening in the dancer's words would mean nothing, might even mean nothing to Thannis himself but if he could guess where her mind was going then he'd have a fair idea what she was going on about. There was no faintness in her though a fainting spell would have been an appropriate response right about now.

He was looking right at her and he had to have some idea of what was going on in her head. The horror she was experiencing was written large upon her face and she almost thought that he was looking for it, searching for her response. Well he was sure to have seen it clearly enough. Maybe he wanted to know for sure if she'd worked it out, just how much of a monster he really was. There was nothing human about him at all except... he was still human in his head. He still had emotions, he had a conscience and they didn't seem to be something false that had been stuck in once he'd been brought back. If he was only out for himself, the things that he needed then the man wouldn't have stepped in to save her in the tavern. She'd have been dead as soon as he'd discovered her here tonight. He was a person who'd made a decision to live but hadn't known the consequences of what he was doing.

The fact that he couldn't bleed brought a revelation to her, an obvious one. He couldn't bleed to death. He couldn't die that way but was there some way for him to die? The fact that he knew that he couldn't bleed meant that he'd gotten cut before. Had it healed? If that happened then he'd never be able to do enough damage to himself. He'd winced when she'd cut him too so she doubted that he could keep cutting himself and trying to slice himself to bits. So maybe he couldn't be killed and that'd make everything so much worse for him. Truly cursed and unable to do anything about it, no escape. He was a monster all right but he was still a person inside.

"You said drink, before. Are you... do you have to drink bl-bl-" It was suddenly clear why Thannis had gotten her to slice his arm open to demonstrate what he couldn't say himself. It was hard to say it and she wasn't even the one who was stuck with the curse that he was. "blood?" she whispered after a few ticks. It was out there now. Maybe she was wrong but she doubted it. If he'd confirm it then the air would be clear between them if such a thing was possible. If that was the reason then it made sense why he had committed murder. If he needed the blood then maybe he wasn't that bad a guy after all.

It didn't stop her from feeling a little bit ill.
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[Thannis Daraktheon]

It was clear upon her face. Denial and yet understanding and it horrified her. It horrified him. It was horrifying. He wasn't alive. He wasn't dead. He wasn't natural. He'd never wanted Caela to have to find out. There was something about her he just couldn't lose. He'd meant what he said earlier. He didn't love her. He felt no interest in using her body. What was she to him then? Thannis couldn't think about it now. He looked down at her feet. He couldn't look into those eyes anymore. The only thing that stared back at him was the truth.

Finally something slipped from her lips. She wanted him to tell her it was all a lie. What would he even say, he wondered. That man he'd killed earlier was some kind of murderer or some other vile person. He would have had to be something undeniably horrible for Thannis to justify murdering him in such a way. To invalidate everything he had already told her. They were past the point of no return now. Caela knew the secret and no matter how much she didn't want to know it would always be there.

He had to look at her again when she spoke next. Her voice sounded different. He was so eager to hope that she didn't completely think him a monster that he caught the change in her voice astutely. She couldn't say that last word but something was different about her. He'd missed something. Her face had changed. It wasn't a major change but it wasn't as bad as it had been. Something had occurred to her, some thought had sprung up to change something. She even managed to say it. She managed to say that word; the word that meant the thing that his whole life now revolved around. Blood; it carried life to the living and meant peace for the living dead. Without it he was just another monster. With it he was almost human.

“Yes.” He breathed. He looked directly into her eyes. His whole face; his whole body; beseeching her for forgiveness. He had not hurt her; he had never even tried; and yet it was almost as if he wanted her to speak for all of the people he had killed. It was almost as if by her acceptance in him he might be able to accept himself; to live with all that he had done. He was full of hope; the hope of the living.

[Caela Dorin]

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One word, one simple word should not have had the power to make such a difference to her. A simple affirmative that filled her with horror and made her stomach roil. Her thoughts went to the bloody beaten corpse around the corner, thought of the pool of blood that had no doubt formed around it. Didn't help her stomach. Neither did the realisation that the blood that had been on Thannis's hands was no longer there. Of course her mind had to wonder where it had gone to and the first explanation that it provided was that he had licked it off his hands.

The nausea that had come before the fainting spell returned again and she tried to calm herself. Caela wasn't going to faint again. She tried not to think about blood or Thannis drinking it, the thought was not a welcome one right now. The dancer was going to remain composed and was not going to faint away in front of him again, she was stronger than that. But her stomach wasn't.

Dizziness never came and the nausea continued to rise until she found herself gagging. There was enough time to stagger a little way down the alley and away from the undead man before her stomach went into spasm. When it stopped, she was able to lean against wall, forehead clammy and swore. "Just beautiful," she groaned as she made her way back down to Thannis. Her side hadn't appreciated her stomach's sudden need to purge itself and was throbbing anew. He was certainly doing a good job of throwing her body completely out of whack and it was only because he was here.

He was still sitting on the crate so she made a shooing motion. She needed to sit and if he'd move then she could. Her face was dropped into icy palms and she groaned again. There was nothing worse than throwing up and it didn't help that she hadn't had the best of meals today. Bed on an empty stomach for her it seemed. The idea of food sent her stomach roiling again so she stopped thinking about it, not wanting to cough up acid, her mouth tasted bad enough as it was.

"Sorry. Just had a moment of weakness. Again. I'm such a stereotypical woman, aren't I?" she joked weakly, uncovering her face again to look at Thannis. A faint smile managed to fight its way to her lips. "I... We won't mention the uh... consequences of your condition again. I think it's safe to say that we both know what we're talking about if it comes up again. I'd really like if it didn't come up for a little while." The blonde's gaze was pleading. She couldn't stand another mention of the b word right now and hopefully he'd realise that. She lapsed into silence, thinking of what she could see.

"I believe you. I don't understand you, not fully, I doubt that you even understand yourself fully now but I am trying." A moment to chew on her dry and cracked lips - Gods she needed a drink - before she pressed on, speaking slowly. "I think... that it isn't your fault. I think that you're still you, what you were before, underneath what you are now. You're still alive, not in the conventional sense but you aren't a monster. A human within a monster perhaps but you aren't one, not really. If you were then I wouldn't be alive right now. If there wasn't something human in you then you wouldn't have stopped. If you were truly a monster then I don't think that you'd care about being one. You'd have no conscience, no sense of right and wrong, no human sense of things but you do."

There was pity in her gaze. The blonde was genuine about what she was saying it, she meant every word. Despite what she'd seen, what she'd heard and how her own body had reacted that was how she felt. Her body had come to one conclusion and her mind had come to another one entirely. By all rights, she should have been running away as if her life depended on it but Caela was still here talking to him as if he was any ordinary person instead of a murderous member of the undead.
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