Re: in-person: mina/dracula
Her knees buckled, but she was rather proud of her own ability to remain upright in the face of dreaded reality. The truths he echoed, these things were of her dreaming. Nightmares she'd been convincing herself were not waking terrors, and tricks of the mind that remained anything but tricks. "I know. I've known not to trust Vanessa. Since I arrived, since before." But perhaps he knew. Perhaps, young and recently wed to a man who did not read, did not dance, did not lavish, she'd already spoken the words to him. Or, perhaps, he'd merely heard the gossip; it was the tale of the season that year, her spoiled wedding and the whispers about the groom and the bride's best friend. Like a sister, they said, and it had hurt just the same. "I trusted Victor, but now I am not sure. I cannot tell if he loves the idea of my being dead more than he loves her."
Her words trembled, leaves in a strong wind. But, like her knees, her voice remained true, and the words were spoken as more than air in the scarlet room.
She had questions, of course. A multitude of them, queries dancing in her head. But she would save them. A giggle rose along the column of her pale throat, escaped pink lips, and she seemed a carefree creature in that moment. But it was the thought, you see. Saving the questions, and there would be nothing but time, barring someone shooting her again. Yes, he was right, she could tell no one. As new and terrifying as this was, she knew she had no desire to die once more. Gravedirt, and she did not want it upon a box that held her bones.
She knew, somehow, that what he said of his others was true. She suspected there was a reason for it, a purpose. Vanessa, perhaps. She would ask someday. But not tonight. She was hungry, and she was frightened, and she wanted to be left alone with her thoughts. She wanted to comprehend the draw of the man that shared the space with her, seemingly larger than life, and yet so very normal in every regard. "Griffin knows what I am, but he will not say. Though he is reckless. I believe I invited him here, along with a girl." The words spoken slowly, things coming together like two sides of a seam stitched with memories.
He spread his arms wide, and she ruminated, though the desire to go to him was a tug, a string at her breast and a pull that was nearly as strong as the hunger that churned. She blinked her beryl eyes, and she thought of daylight, the burn of it now; she could barely stand it, not in the way she had when she'd first come. Her impulse control, a thing tethered to her humanity, wavered and waned, and really there was no other outcome that was possible.
"Shall I come with you?" She took that step forward, and the next, and now her knees were not quite so steady, faltering in the face of overwhelming understanding, truth finally eclipsing dreaming. Like a doe upon new legs, she reached for him as she crumbled, blackness overtaking the room's scarlet and cream.