Re: Woods: Claire/Daniel
It had been some time since anything had managed to evade Daniel, and even in his the sun confusion he reacted with surprise that she was able to evade his clutching grip. The fabric whipped out of his hands and he came up empty-handed in the lunge, righting himself with a belated pull against gravity to keep her in his sights. It was easy to see why vampires were so easy to fight in the day. The glare obviously made it hard for Daniel to see her clearly, and the exposure affected one eye and his balance with the rest of the world.
The sound of her name stopped him. It wasn't true madness, not the madness of a decade gone. He knew who he was and where he was, even what he was. It wasn't the reactions of an animal haunted by speaking shadows of the long dead. Daniel knew that he was Daniel; he was just confused and angry through his pain. He stopped, swayed a moment indecisively, and peered through a gaze both black and bloody. He spoke a word in Italian, a quiver of question, a confused what, that had no answer.
Then he said, "Isabella?"
Daniel circled closer back to the truck of the tree, old and twisted that it was and fully high enough to arch over his head. This was the darkest the midday woods would ever get, and in the shade he tried again to see her through the poppy-red smear of color. Frightened that he might of hurt her and likewise that she might hurt him, he stood there in a lean and shuddered against what might have been. He said the first thing that came to his mind. "What are you wearing?"