Emmeline Fox | M E D I U M (spiritphotog) wrote in thisdarknight, @ 2016-07-06 08:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !locale: garden district, david malvot, emmeline rothschild |
i'll cry until the candles burn down this place
Who: David Malvot & Emmeline Rothschild.
What: The fight that started it all.
Where: Church of St. Bartholomew.
When: Following Nathalie's suicide.
Warnings: None.
Progress: Gdoc, complete.
The note was still clutched tightly in her hand, blood staining its off-white coloring to make Nathalie's spidery handwriting nearly illegible. Screams had left her throat torn to ribbons, and she laid alongside her former Sire's coffin; unable to climb inside it, unable to leave its side.
They'd dragged Emmeline back into the church after she'd found the note and was on her hands and knees scooping up ash just outside its entrance. She'd bloodied her fingers and palms, loosed nails scraping as hard as she could into the concrete, despite the fact that the daytime's wind had blown most of it into the dirt, mixing Nathalie's remains with the soil that surrounded the home they'd built. Emmeline had fought them, unwilling to leave her Sire in the cold earth where she now belonged.
Whether she'd believed she could have revived Nathalie had she collected enough or a simple madness had come over her, Emmeline could not have said. She did not seem in a state to provide explanations as she laid on the floor, wounds untreated and staring off into a space no one else could see.
David had not left her side, even to feed. Izar had brought them food in the form of vitae, blood dolls, and willing kine; nothing and no-one had been able to turn Emmeline's head. He had tried touching her, holding her, singing to her. Nothing had worked, or even seemed to have the slightest impact at all, and his own grief slowly turned on itself to eat away at his thinning patience.
"You need to feed," he said. "This isn't healthy. Tell me how to help you. Zee and I can get anything you want."
Emmeline remained catatonic, the only movement being red-tinged tears sliding down her face. It was clear that there was nothing she wanted, at least not there in that present moment. Her chest throbbed as though it would burst, despite the decayed organs inside; every passing minute seemed worse, probably for the lack of blood that David was persistent in reminding her about.
"I want to die," she finally said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "I want to be with her."
"That isn't going to happen." He wiped bloody tracks from her face, unconsciously licking his fingers clean after. "You're young and strong and we have so much left to do. We can't give up now. If she had wanted us to die, she'd have taken us with her."
"There's nothing left here," she replied, her voice sounding like she was talking to no one in particular. Her gaze was focused on the ceiling, seeing neither David nor anything anyone was doing in an attempt to help her. "I have nothing here. Why would He take her away from me?"
"You have me. You have Zee." David took her hand in his, squeezing it tight. Her broken nail beds cracked and bled anew. "You have family here, and the wider Sanctum beyond. Do not forget us in your grief. We love you, Emmeline, and we will help you if you only allow us."
"No one can help me," she replied, wrenching her hand back from his grasp between the pain he caused and the pain she already felt in her unbeating heart. Her voice was small and plaintive, completely self-pitying as she was lost in the mire of her anguish. "You have Zee. I have nothing." She turned away from him and buried her face against Nathalie's coffin, curling away from him and his attempts to soothe her.
"You don't mean that. You have me." David's hand wrapped hard around his sister's shoulder. He tugged at her, pulling her away from the coffin. "You have us," he whispered. "And you are better than this. You are not some sniveling neonate with no idea how to get through the night. Have some dignity."
"Why?" She turned on him with a snarl, pushing back his hands. "What is the point of any of this? Why would she bring us here, only to abandon us? Why would she go, and only leave us this?" She threw the crumpled note at him, hitting him in the chest. "That is not an explanation. It's not even an excuse. I feel like I've been led into a lie." She put her hands on either side of her head, closing her eyes as she leaned forward over her knees.
"But you haven't," David said. He reached out again, undaunted by her continued rejections -- or at the very least unwilling to give into them. He moved closer beside her, clutching the unread note in his hand. "She left us one another, and you disrespect her and us by insisting otherwise. Listen to yourself, Em. This is beneath you."
He glanced down at the crumpled paper, hating every word written there in blood and death. Whatever words he had left to him died in his throat. He balled the note up in his fist, and felt no satisfaction in hearing his nails tearing through it.
"Don't tell me how to mourn her, David. Am I embarrassing you?" Her voice hissed, vitriol dripping from every syllable. "Maybe if you took a few moments away from the pulpit, you would have seen it. This place was crushing her. We never should have come here. Maybe... maybe this is our fault."
"Our fault?" He recoiled as if she had struck him, or worse. "Why didn't you see? You were beside her every waking moment. You slept beside her, fed beside her, never left her goddamned shadow. How did you not seeā¦ this?" He shook his fist and the damaged letter within it.
"I did!" she snapped back. "Or at least I tried. When she seemed... doubtful, I tried, but she never let me in. I never thought... she'd do this!" Her words were ensnared in another sob that ripped through her throat. Her arms bent to wrap around her middle, as though she were feeling nauseous.
"Then I suppose you weren't as close as you thought." There was sorrow in his voice, but something else, besides: a sense of vindication, of perverse satisfaction. "Imagine that. The favored childe, overestimating the strength of her influence."
Another ache moved through her chest, blood tears stinging at her eyes. "I tried!" Her voice, hoarse and ratty, pleaded, though whether with him or with some unseen entity or even within her own mind wasn't clear. A hand clutched at her breast, fresh pain making her feel as though it would burst. Her gaze shifted from the ceiling back to him, agony mixed within. "I had to try by myself. Where were you? Too busy with your sycophants, too busy with you admirers to give a fuck about your family."
"Too busy doing what she brought me here to do." David's voice was rising, anger darkening every word. "I've embraced the gifts she gave me, while you lie here wallowing in self-pity like some histrionic actress. Maybe if you'd showed some gratitude for what she did for us, or showed her the joy we could still have because of her, she'd not have been driven to this." He rose, nearly shouting now, his hands aflutter with furious energy. "But look at you. So fragile. Have you considered that maybe she was tired of holding you up?"
"I'm sorry I can't shut my emotions off like you, David," she shot back, her thready voice rising in pitch as she struggled to match his volume. "I'm sorry that I'm pained that our Sire is dead. I'm not some unfeeling monster." Fresh tears were spilling over, staining her pale, sallow cheeks with red. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes as more shuddering sobs wracked her thin form. Her voice fell back to a whisper as his words brought forth dark fears from the back of her mind.
"God, maybe this is my fault. I didn't believe enough, I didn't try hard enough. I didn't do enough."
"Maybe so," he said. "God knows you're unobservant and you keep proving that over and over again. If you think I'm shut off, you haven't been paying attention at all. But I can't give in and go sulk and starve myself while you work yourself into a frenzy. I can't allow myself that because I'm still taking care of you. Making sure I don't end up completely alone, as you have convinced yourself you are."
"Go away," she murmured. "If I'm such a burden to you, then just leave me. No one's making you stay." She curled back into Nathalie's coffin, clearly content to be left to her misery.
"Jesus Christ. Enough." Again he grabbed her shoulder. His fingers dug in, nails biting into undead flesh. "Get up, Em. You can't do this to me."
She turned and beat at his arm, his chest. Between her small fists and lack of blood, the blows didn't do any true harm, but their meaning was clear enough. "Don't touch me," she hissed. "I don't care if I'm making a scene. I don't care if I'm making you uncomfortable. I know this looks terrible on you, David, but I'm sure you'll find a way to make others sympathize, won't you? You always do.
"Sire commits herself to the sun, sister gone hysterical. Doesn't look good for the bloodline, does it? Doesn't look good for your followers. You can't tell me how to act. I don't want to be told what to do anymore." She swallowed, trying to wet her tongue enough, her throat enough to make even speaking not be painful. "God can burn this place to the ground for all I care."
He froze. His hand fell to his side, curling into a tight fist. "You would have me lose everything, wouldn't you? Even my home. If you can't have exactly what you want, to Hell with the rest of us, is that it? Now that Nathalie is gone, you don't care about me or Zee. I wonder if you ever did." He took a step back from her. David nodded to an attendant ghoul standing near the door.
"I think you need to stay here until you can compose yourself. I'll send you kine and Kindred to attend to you as necessary. But you don't want me here, and I don't trust you to take care of yourself right now."
"You can't lock me in here, David!" She started to rise to her feet, her legs trembling. Her mutilated fingers grasped at Nathalie's coffin for purchase, seeking something to support her. But the casket was too low, and she could not raise herself high enough. Her knees gave out and she tumbled, onto the casket and onto the floor. She leaned against it, her anger and her agony making her form tremble, fingers splayed against the wood. Her eyes locked onto something across the room, before she closed them, as though she could shut out the entire event.
David watched her stumble. He started to stretch out his hand to her, but drew it back at the last moment. "I can do whatever I must to take care of us," he said. "Hate me now if you need. Whatever gets you through the nights." He turned on his heel and made for the door.
She didn't watch him go, but heard his fleeting footsteps all the same; the door closing behind him made her resolve lessen for a moment. Clenching her jaw, she steeled herself, for the first time in her life making a choice for what she wanted.