Death Threats and Other Love Tokens

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

(( For Skid. ))

I am in my office, inexplicably musing on recent words instead of working as is necessary.

You spoke of acting “how we used to.”

Why have we come to this? Have our affections for one another softened us irrevocably? Has the knowledge and presence of our child tamed us? Are we doomed to take such pleasures when we reek of nostalgia, settled instead inside our domesticity on a consistent basis?

Am I incorrect to even ruminate on these matters? Are we at such a bad state if our outings are fewer in nature? Are we not better served in full admissions and shared domicile?

I do not know.

I do know your simple words unsettle me, and remind me that we two have met other pursuits and become complacent in each other. And perhaps that is the reason why we do not behave as we have before – we are complacent and settled together. The pretense of attempt to kill you no longer holds attraction to me because it is, at the very least, empty and ever unfulfilled by design and will of heart.

Also, we each know, with calm certainty, where the other shall generally be. It is no great hunt, no stalking in woods as we seek cold scent of each other. We merely need step into our shared chambers to catch our ‘prey,’ such that we are.

Do not misunderstand me, however. I am not displeased by such arrangement. We have traded tortuous rapture for the gentler, homely love. As long as it sustains I am reasonably content.

So why do I ponder your words with distaste? And what can I – we – do about this state? If anything need done.

I do not know.

[Skid]

Sia Froneel,


Our life together is, has been, and shall be inconceivably spontaneous in its own ways, won't it?



You mention how unsettled you are by my words, but the angle from which you view the whole seems skewed to me; as though this settling of our entireties into each other's selves, or 'complacency' as you call it, has some darker portent of what's yet to come for us. 



I believe in all you do, but your ruminations here are something I stand against. Simply knowing you will be where I can find you drives me to achieve greater and greater feats, aware that you'll be there when I come home--able to see what I've done since last we shared our bed or home, or even a meal with our blood and bonded. 



The deeper and more complex the degree to which we've intertwined becomes, the greater my need is to become more than I am. This, if anything, unsettles me.



You inspire things in me. 

You've moved me from my complacency into something more. I dare to think I've done at least something similar to you in your endeavors.



I've built some up, toppled others; but the sheen of pride in your eyes when I share my exploits is the only recompense I desire when the days begin to muddle together and I remind myself that, while I have a great many things, when you're away I don't have you.



((A number of starts and scratched out lines break the initial portion from the remainder))



What should we do? Do I drive you to such heights? There are endless opportunities and chances for us, though the barriers over which they lie are unknown to me.



Which direction do we turn from here?

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

(( 2017. ))

My love.

My mate.

How I hate you.

I stand at the cusp of all I have sought to attain in your home land; my agents have informed me that I will be nominated to ascend to supreme power for the next term. I have reorganized my world, my life, to suit your homely notion of what is just in this world. All I had known in my majority, I gave for you.

The loss suited neither of us. I found myself adrift, bored, lax in discipline and order. You found yourself disengaged, unsettled by my depressive state.

And so you gave me new lease, as neither of us could countenance me as I had become.

Your son, your Teshid, and I, drew a new empire in the land you spawned from. It was but a different seam of stock, these goods we delivered from Rhydin, but one sought after and highly received from the natives. Your son is a pride, having indeed a larger head for business than even I.

He has served even well beyond my wildest hope and has left me to journey into the political realm I had dreamt of commandeering.

These endeavors have claimed the bulk of my physical attentions for these few years and yet we have persevered. We have not, however, thrived compatibly.

Suturi has gained a child – though she names him brother – of her own. I confess amusement at her childish boldness but also ponder the risks she takes when guidance is absent. What else have I missed in pursuit of this acknowledgment of my prowess?

I am about to achieve my due honor, yet my thoughts draw me home. To the hellish howl of your vitae that sings through my very soul. To dangers, to death and return. To our issue, to our combined charges. And my accomplishments ring faintly hollow.

Were I to accept, full-time attendance upon this cursed place would be required… and while I am content enough to spy your dark visage infrequently in the name of our physical gains, I do hold too dear the pleasure of seeping your blood into my home land.

I shall decline that aim, because you continue to hold me in your thrall. I remain addicted.

I hate you, for this weakness.

I continue to hate how I love you.

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

You plague my thoughts again and ruin my efforts.

When do you not?

It has not been long since I have journeyed to Rhydin, to home, yet my attention drifts across the worlds to your shores as soon as I am gone. However, I have recognized that my memories of your vitae, of your burning for and of me, fade as sand shifts once more to the seas with each wave that gently calls it away. I recall, vaguely, those nights in the woods; those terrible nights where our love was perfectly deadly.

You will not, you cannot kill me. I wish you could. I have said this before, aye, when we have spoken of complacency. I can no more kill you, for those same reasonings. However... My blood aches for yours, my flesh sings with want for yours to cover, to dissolve me while I cannot but howl in delicious agony from your acid fluidity.

(( The letter is dotted with thick, dark spots, irregular in size but so very obviously blood. There is no pattern, but there is enough to suggest that the author has purposely injured themselves, and deeply, and allowed the fluid to coat the parchment. At the bottom of the letter, scrawled in the vital fluid, is a diagram. Invisible to the eye but noticeable should one examine the letter in close and closed proximity is the scent of fluid of another sort. ))

--|=<3=>