Post by Rumor Black on Sept 15, 2016 16:00:35 GMT
Every night was beautiful, even more so than the one before. The moment eyes of baby blue opened, instinct waking her as the sun finally dipped safely beneath the rolling cliffs, turning the river and ocean just outside their blacked out window to fire. She wiggled back and forth as she struggled to free herself from the tangled mess of blankets that somehow always seemed to capture her during the daylight hours. Managing to get across the chest of her first true love, who still hadn't quite mastered sleeping through her evening ritual, she collapsed onto the wooden floor in a heap of dark hair, pale skin, and the multitoned fox tail protruding from her spine. "Ooooffff~"
By the time she managed to, for the second time, untangle herself from the evil blankets and their dastardly plans to keep her FOREVER, she peeked up to see the amused smile she so loved peering back at her. He artfully cocked a brow at the puddle of girlfriend that happened almost every night, as if to ask what she was up to. Not like he didn't know, but the nightly routine made his little Rumor happy. Who was he to deny her that?
"Oh my gosh, I might miss it!" The tiny Gangrel managed between her tinkling laughter. Those Christmas bell giggles only brightened the entire cabin, though she didn't seem to notice as she awkwardly scrambled towards the window, only a few feet away. Long legs and pianist hands splayed wildly in random, awkward directions. If he hadn't witnessed it so many times before, even David would have compared the scene to some teeny-bopper anime, and his beautiful girlfriend would be the clumsy but loveable protagonist.
"I can't miss it! I don't get to miss it anymore, you know? Ever since Mum died, I've made sure to go and see it and the way it looks, because she used to always tell me about it. But she only ever shared this with Killy, which makes it suuuuuper romantic... Like, they were in love for over two hundred years! That's such a long time, and they only ever had each other and they only ever wanted each other. And they watched the sunset together every night, and I bet they still do, but their ghosts now. So I don't know if it's AS romantic. Buuuuut that's okay, right David? Right? Right. Because we do it, now. And we're going to be a lot like Mum and Da, right?"
At some point during her ramble, broken only by the needless breaths that she utilized in an effort to maintain her humanity, Rumor had untangle herself from the blanket and abandoned it on the floor. Of course, she didn't realize that her boyfriend picked it up, even if he did every night. Moving up behind her, he managed to get it draped delicately around her shoulders, just in time for her to turn those wide, almost doe like eyes of endless summer skies upon him, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
She paused as her heart, which beat softly within the confines of her chest, gave an agonized squeeze in response to his closeness, his touch. The moment froze, like a snapshot taken with her mind, so she could evaluate every aspect of it. It was easy to immortalize such beautiful, perfect moments; the way his bedhead made him look almost lazy, his down feathers sticking out all around his head, or how his eyes gleamed with the emotion he hadn't ever been able to put into words. Despite David being mute, when she took a picture of the moment, she swore she could hear him, serenading her with poetry and love songs from the 80's. Always the 80's.
What lasted at least a handful of minutes to Rumor passed in a fraction of a second, as it should, in the real world. It seemed to the girl, with her tail happily wagging back and forth, that she had been listening to the sounds of romance for some time, and that it was her turn to speak, to tell him exactly what was on her hypersensitive, constantly-in-motion mind. After all, David was always willing to listen to her, no matter how much she spoke.
"That's one of the best things ever, you know? Mum and Da, I really think we're like them. We will be standing here in our cabin at our window in, like, two hundred years, and we'll look back at this night - and every other night, because I know I say this all the time, but that doesn't make it any less true - looking back at this night, at how we started this together to keep a piece of my parents alive. And we have. We've kept alive a part of their romance and we've made it a part of ours, and if we ever have people like Childers or children or students or whatever, we can pass it on to them, too. Then, this thing that Mum and Da started to do an entire forever ago will be the new thing... Well, the old thing."
Just as suddenly as she began, the monologue came to an abrupt end as a thought assaulted her. She physically startled, body jerking back into the comfort of her beloved's arms, allowing him to steady her. He didn't bother trying to ask, having normalized the reaction. Whenever tumbling downhill with a single train of thought, if something else suddenly demanded her attention, Rumor was known to respond physically, as if frightened or attacked. As it always did, however, the moment of fear passed into awe of the thought and it's content. She paused for a single moment longer - that's two in a row! - and her jaw went slack.
Then, she began again, voice raising ever so slightly in light of her newfound enthusiasm, even more energetic than her normal, already elevated beyond comprehension levels. "That's it, David! That's it! Look at this, look at all of this! It's the festival day, remember? Because we're going to go sit by the river, right, and watch as they send stuff up into the sky! It's going to be so pretty and I can put my feet in the water and feel the fishies -- wait, wait, I know. Off topic!" Just as her lover's hand rose to attempt to refocus her, she closed her eyes tight in order to concentrate.
It took less than a second of what looked like genuine effort, nose and forehead wrinkled as she powered through the compulsion to keep on about something so irrelevant. She and David would enjoy their festival, she knew, but this... this was important. This was an epiphany that she simply couldn't keep hidden under mounds of useless junk.
It was too beautiful for that.
"You know how last night we were with everybody, and then we all started talking about the festival because it's tonight, right? Well, Lizzie started saying that, like, we were them, right? The couple. The star crossed lovers with that beautiful story and the ability to grant wishes and make people happy, but like... we're here now because we made so many people happy, the stars gave us a life to be together, and then we both got Embraced and now that life is forever. That was what they were saying, right?"
She could see the confusion flicker across his face as he nodded, still standing behind her. An arm wrapped around the delicate curve of her waist and his hand rested on her shoulder, pulling her back into his embrace as he listened. Whatever point she was getting at... Obviously, it had her worked up, even more than she was when it regarded, like... fluffy bunnies. Or Lizzie calling her fluff-bucket.
"We were all wrong... No, we aren't them... It's Mum and Da! They're the Star crossed lovers! That's why!! But now they get to be together because of tragedy, because we - me and you - we don't have tragedy in our story. Remember? You promised me a happy ending, but Mum and Da... They didn't get one. Or did they? Because, you've seen them. They're so happy, now! And look what they did. Don't you remember when we first got together, right? You told me, you signed... You wished we had something we could always share together, even if we had to be away from each other... Remember that?"
The longer the dialogue went on, the more enthralled she became with the correlation she made. While logic dictated that no, her parents were not the personification of some Japanese legend, granting wishes once a year to share their love with the people of Nagasaki, logic very rarely managed to sway the deep rooted romanticism that Rumor clung to. Unable to abandon her girlie, child like dreams of how he might propose and what dress she might wear, she had the added bonus of still being in total, overwhelming puppy dog love, just as strong as it had ever been. Perhaps even stronger, even more powerful, as the couple stood together to watch the fire fading away from the water so close... and so far away.
He nodded into her shoulder just as she began to bounce her knee, growing restless during the handful of seconds it took him to respond to her. While she knew she worked at warp drive in comparison, the raw excitement at getting to share this new discovery with the man she loved the most in the world... It was like living one of the sappy romance movies she obsessed over. As soon as he nodded, she was off again, trying to consciously slow herself down... and failing epically.
"Well we do now! No matter what happens if we can't sleep together we can still go and look at the sunset and even if we are a world apart we're still looking at the sunset because we're just small little creatures in this whole big wide universe and we managed to find each other and I don't ever want to let you go but I know that I will still always find you because that's how important you are to me and I love you so much that I had to make sure you realized that Mum and Da granted your wish and now they're back with the Stars even if they are ghosts and--"
Violently, Rumor sucked in as much oxygen as her lungs could handle, sputtering and coughing as she realized just how much she had said in such a short period of time. Hunching her shoulders as she tried to breathe, she felt the familiar arms of her lover there, straightening her and forcing her to breathe through the initial panic. Asthma was not a Kindred disease, but the Golconda to be still managed to psyche herself out regularly. Finally able to slow her breathing, a careful process with many steps, Rumor smiled her gratitude and sat down on one of the overly plush chairs they had, the ugly print making her smile, just like it always did.
Before she gathered enough of herself to speak again, a flicker of movement caught her attention. David's deft, artist fingers danced through the air in a simple, familiar pattern, and as she read her boyfriend's sign language, she felt her emotion swell within her, the warmth and affection infecting the air around her until David, too, seemed to melt. "Just to make sure," she confirmed, still gasping slightly. "You asked... what I wished for?" He grinned that silly, toothy grin and nodded, pulling her up from the chair by both hands.
Wrapped in his arms, it was easy to forget that there was anything to want. The couple swayed back and forth, shuffling their feet in the stereotypical eighth grade way, and slow danced to a song only they could hear. Love, the same kind of love a child experienced, filled the cabin like a physical sensation. There was nothing to taint it, or tear it, for Rumor loved with no doubts nor concerns. She loved wholly, completely, irrevocably, and unconditionally, and dancing with David, the feeling intensified all around them. Their world, as it often was, became each other, their love, and their little cabin with all its mismatched furniture.
It was easy to forget about the war, or the Kindred that were still lost in the world. It didn't occur to her that they were wasting precious time, because obviously, the world stopped and started with simple moments like these. Even as the squeal and pop of the fireworks interrupted their silently shared song, and the bright, colorful lights cascaded around them, the two held firm to their belief that the world was theirs... that the love they shared made it theirs.
"My wish came true," Rumor whispered, finally, speaking so close to his ear, her lips brushed along his skin. She didn't want the fireworks to take anything she said away from him... because David was the only one allowed to know, to hear the secret she felt she kept. "I wished... that I could share love. With people... and as a Golconda, I can do that. And with you, I can do that... and with the Gangrel... My wish came true. I can share this love..."
Burying her beautiful face into the crook of David's shoulder, she missed the Magic by only a moment, but she felt it. Across her soul, stars flew, leaving behind tails of light and tales and stories. The pattern exactly mimicked the shooting stars that set the background for the rest of the fireworks. As she absorbed the Magic, as she felt it become a part of her, she felt it filling every crack and crevice, healing the wounds, and her body seemed suddenly feint. Her legs couldn't support her, anymore, and she began to fall like a weight. Luckily, with both arms around her, it was no difficulty for the silent bird like Gangrel to hold her off the floor, cradling her semi-conscious form. As she often did, Rumor gave too much, and her body was paying for it.
Murmuring softly, her head lulled from side to side until, at long last, she managed to focus on the rolling amber that reminded her she was home. Smiling a dizzy, loopy sort of smile, she spoke as she often did: without thinking. "I wish," she chuckled, "I wish... I wish I could hear your voice... Just once... so I know what... Love sounded like when it spoke..."
Her eyelids fluttered, eyes rolling back for a moment. She curled her tiny frame into his chest, feeling it rise and fall with every breath. One, out... two, out... three, out... four...
"I love you, Rumor Black."
By the time she managed to, for the second time, untangle herself from the evil blankets and their dastardly plans to keep her FOREVER, she peeked up to see the amused smile she so loved peering back at her. He artfully cocked a brow at the puddle of girlfriend that happened almost every night, as if to ask what she was up to. Not like he didn't know, but the nightly routine made his little Rumor happy. Who was he to deny her that?
"Oh my gosh, I might miss it!" The tiny Gangrel managed between her tinkling laughter. Those Christmas bell giggles only brightened the entire cabin, though she didn't seem to notice as she awkwardly scrambled towards the window, only a few feet away. Long legs and pianist hands splayed wildly in random, awkward directions. If he hadn't witnessed it so many times before, even David would have compared the scene to some teeny-bopper anime, and his beautiful girlfriend would be the clumsy but loveable protagonist.
"I can't miss it! I don't get to miss it anymore, you know? Ever since Mum died, I've made sure to go and see it and the way it looks, because she used to always tell me about it. But she only ever shared this with Killy, which makes it suuuuuper romantic... Like, they were in love for over two hundred years! That's such a long time, and they only ever had each other and they only ever wanted each other. And they watched the sunset together every night, and I bet they still do, but their ghosts now. So I don't know if it's AS romantic. Buuuuut that's okay, right David? Right? Right. Because we do it, now. And we're going to be a lot like Mum and Da, right?"
At some point during her ramble, broken only by the needless breaths that she utilized in an effort to maintain her humanity, Rumor had untangle herself from the blanket and abandoned it on the floor. Of course, she didn't realize that her boyfriend picked it up, even if he did every night. Moving up behind her, he managed to get it draped delicately around her shoulders, just in time for her to turn those wide, almost doe like eyes of endless summer skies upon him, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
She paused as her heart, which beat softly within the confines of her chest, gave an agonized squeeze in response to his closeness, his touch. The moment froze, like a snapshot taken with her mind, so she could evaluate every aspect of it. It was easy to immortalize such beautiful, perfect moments; the way his bedhead made him look almost lazy, his down feathers sticking out all around his head, or how his eyes gleamed with the emotion he hadn't ever been able to put into words. Despite David being mute, when she took a picture of the moment, she swore she could hear him, serenading her with poetry and love songs from the 80's. Always the 80's.
What lasted at least a handful of minutes to Rumor passed in a fraction of a second, as it should, in the real world. It seemed to the girl, with her tail happily wagging back and forth, that she had been listening to the sounds of romance for some time, and that it was her turn to speak, to tell him exactly what was on her hypersensitive, constantly-in-motion mind. After all, David was always willing to listen to her, no matter how much she spoke.
"That's one of the best things ever, you know? Mum and Da, I really think we're like them. We will be standing here in our cabin at our window in, like, two hundred years, and we'll look back at this night - and every other night, because I know I say this all the time, but that doesn't make it any less true - looking back at this night, at how we started this together to keep a piece of my parents alive. And we have. We've kept alive a part of their romance and we've made it a part of ours, and if we ever have people like Childers or children or students or whatever, we can pass it on to them, too. Then, this thing that Mum and Da started to do an entire forever ago will be the new thing... Well, the old thing."
Just as suddenly as she began, the monologue came to an abrupt end as a thought assaulted her. She physically startled, body jerking back into the comfort of her beloved's arms, allowing him to steady her. He didn't bother trying to ask, having normalized the reaction. Whenever tumbling downhill with a single train of thought, if something else suddenly demanded her attention, Rumor was known to respond physically, as if frightened or attacked. As it always did, however, the moment of fear passed into awe of the thought and it's content. She paused for a single moment longer - that's two in a row! - and her jaw went slack.
Then, she began again, voice raising ever so slightly in light of her newfound enthusiasm, even more energetic than her normal, already elevated beyond comprehension levels. "That's it, David! That's it! Look at this, look at all of this! It's the festival day, remember? Because we're going to go sit by the river, right, and watch as they send stuff up into the sky! It's going to be so pretty and I can put my feet in the water and feel the fishies -- wait, wait, I know. Off topic!" Just as her lover's hand rose to attempt to refocus her, she closed her eyes tight in order to concentrate.
It took less than a second of what looked like genuine effort, nose and forehead wrinkled as she powered through the compulsion to keep on about something so irrelevant. She and David would enjoy their festival, she knew, but this... this was important. This was an epiphany that she simply couldn't keep hidden under mounds of useless junk.
It was too beautiful for that.
"You know how last night we were with everybody, and then we all started talking about the festival because it's tonight, right? Well, Lizzie started saying that, like, we were them, right? The couple. The star crossed lovers with that beautiful story and the ability to grant wishes and make people happy, but like... we're here now because we made so many people happy, the stars gave us a life to be together, and then we both got Embraced and now that life is forever. That was what they were saying, right?"
She could see the confusion flicker across his face as he nodded, still standing behind her. An arm wrapped around the delicate curve of her waist and his hand rested on her shoulder, pulling her back into his embrace as he listened. Whatever point she was getting at... Obviously, it had her worked up, even more than she was when it regarded, like... fluffy bunnies. Or Lizzie calling her fluff-bucket.
"We were all wrong... No, we aren't them... It's Mum and Da! They're the Star crossed lovers! That's why!! But now they get to be together because of tragedy, because we - me and you - we don't have tragedy in our story. Remember? You promised me a happy ending, but Mum and Da... They didn't get one. Or did they? Because, you've seen them. They're so happy, now! And look what they did. Don't you remember when we first got together, right? You told me, you signed... You wished we had something we could always share together, even if we had to be away from each other... Remember that?"
The longer the dialogue went on, the more enthralled she became with the correlation she made. While logic dictated that no, her parents were not the personification of some Japanese legend, granting wishes once a year to share their love with the people of Nagasaki, logic very rarely managed to sway the deep rooted romanticism that Rumor clung to. Unable to abandon her girlie, child like dreams of how he might propose and what dress she might wear, she had the added bonus of still being in total, overwhelming puppy dog love, just as strong as it had ever been. Perhaps even stronger, even more powerful, as the couple stood together to watch the fire fading away from the water so close... and so far away.
He nodded into her shoulder just as she began to bounce her knee, growing restless during the handful of seconds it took him to respond to her. While she knew she worked at warp drive in comparison, the raw excitement at getting to share this new discovery with the man she loved the most in the world... It was like living one of the sappy romance movies she obsessed over. As soon as he nodded, she was off again, trying to consciously slow herself down... and failing epically.
"Well we do now! No matter what happens if we can't sleep together we can still go and look at the sunset and even if we are a world apart we're still looking at the sunset because we're just small little creatures in this whole big wide universe and we managed to find each other and I don't ever want to let you go but I know that I will still always find you because that's how important you are to me and I love you so much that I had to make sure you realized that Mum and Da granted your wish and now they're back with the Stars even if they are ghosts and--"
Violently, Rumor sucked in as much oxygen as her lungs could handle, sputtering and coughing as she realized just how much she had said in such a short period of time. Hunching her shoulders as she tried to breathe, she felt the familiar arms of her lover there, straightening her and forcing her to breathe through the initial panic. Asthma was not a Kindred disease, but the Golconda to be still managed to psyche herself out regularly. Finally able to slow her breathing, a careful process with many steps, Rumor smiled her gratitude and sat down on one of the overly plush chairs they had, the ugly print making her smile, just like it always did.
Before she gathered enough of herself to speak again, a flicker of movement caught her attention. David's deft, artist fingers danced through the air in a simple, familiar pattern, and as she read her boyfriend's sign language, she felt her emotion swell within her, the warmth and affection infecting the air around her until David, too, seemed to melt. "Just to make sure," she confirmed, still gasping slightly. "You asked... what I wished for?" He grinned that silly, toothy grin and nodded, pulling her up from the chair by both hands.
Wrapped in his arms, it was easy to forget that there was anything to want. The couple swayed back and forth, shuffling their feet in the stereotypical eighth grade way, and slow danced to a song only they could hear. Love, the same kind of love a child experienced, filled the cabin like a physical sensation. There was nothing to taint it, or tear it, for Rumor loved with no doubts nor concerns. She loved wholly, completely, irrevocably, and unconditionally, and dancing with David, the feeling intensified all around them. Their world, as it often was, became each other, their love, and their little cabin with all its mismatched furniture.
It was easy to forget about the war, or the Kindred that were still lost in the world. It didn't occur to her that they were wasting precious time, because obviously, the world stopped and started with simple moments like these. Even as the squeal and pop of the fireworks interrupted their silently shared song, and the bright, colorful lights cascaded around them, the two held firm to their belief that the world was theirs... that the love they shared made it theirs.
"My wish came true," Rumor whispered, finally, speaking so close to his ear, her lips brushed along his skin. She didn't want the fireworks to take anything she said away from him... because David was the only one allowed to know, to hear the secret she felt she kept. "I wished... that I could share love. With people... and as a Golconda, I can do that. And with you, I can do that... and with the Gangrel... My wish came true. I can share this love..."
Burying her beautiful face into the crook of David's shoulder, she missed the Magic by only a moment, but she felt it. Across her soul, stars flew, leaving behind tails of light and tales and stories. The pattern exactly mimicked the shooting stars that set the background for the rest of the fireworks. As she absorbed the Magic, as she felt it become a part of her, she felt it filling every crack and crevice, healing the wounds, and her body seemed suddenly feint. Her legs couldn't support her, anymore, and she began to fall like a weight. Luckily, with both arms around her, it was no difficulty for the silent bird like Gangrel to hold her off the floor, cradling her semi-conscious form. As she often did, Rumor gave too much, and her body was paying for it.
Murmuring softly, her head lulled from side to side until, at long last, she managed to focus on the rolling amber that reminded her she was home. Smiling a dizzy, loopy sort of smile, she spoke as she often did: without thinking. "I wish," she chuckled, "I wish... I wish I could hear your voice... Just once... so I know what... Love sounded like when it spoke..."
Her eyelids fluttered, eyes rolling back for a moment. She curled her tiny frame into his chest, feeling it rise and fall with every breath. One, out... two, out... three, out... four...
"I love you, Rumor Black."
