UNTAMEDelegance
Member
since 05-30-2009
Posts 156
Pain
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0 posted 03-29-2010 01:11 AM
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Tae began to breathe again. These people had faces. They couldn’t be exactly like the stories. In fact, taking a second look, they were nothing like the stories. The stories talked of vicious, creatures that would swoop down on you like hawks and eat the flesh right off of your bones. These people were graceful, thin, and tall; the shortest of them taller than any man in Ziia. They were feral, but the wildness about them was beautiful and pure. They had no hair, their eyes were completely white, and when they moved it was like watching liquid shadow; quicksilver and smooth.
“Welcome, love,” a voice whispered in Tae’s ear. Tae squeaked in surprise, whipping around, and took a step backwards. As she stepped, a thorn vine caught on the soft leather of her boot and Tae stumbled. She felt herself falling. One minute she was standing straight up, the next minute the world flew up and away like someone had pulled a nonexistent carpet out from beneath her feet. Tae landed hard on her backside and pain immediately shot through her spine. Tae’s face flushed with anger.
“Where do you get off,” she shouted. “Scaring me like…uh…that?” she had made a mistake. A dire mistake. Tae had made the mistake of looking up and into the eyes of the most handsome man she had ever seen. Shoulder length, pitch black hair fell down in soft waves around his face. His skin was a moonlight pale color that caught the firelight in a bronzed halo. Sharp yet soft features were accented by warm eyes that were such a deep, dark brown that they were almost black. He was dressed in a black suit. His pants were slightly too big for him; hanging loosely around his legs and bunching around the bottoms of his booted foot. The black jacket was unbuttoned over a deep crimson shirt. The stark contrast between the shirt and his skin was almost frightening and brought to Tae’s mind all of the stories of blood-sucking vampires she ever been told. Yet, despite this, the outfit was extremely dashing over his slim, well-muscled body. Tae gulped and looked away, embarrassed at her outburst.
Chuckling, the beautiful stranger reached out a pale hand and offered it to Tae. She shrank back as if the hand carried the plague, the pox, and other various deadly diseases. “Don’t be afraid, Tae,” he said. “I won’t hurt you.” His voice was deep and soft, like the tender caresses of wind swooping through the river-bed reeds; smooth, feline.
But this didn’t stop Tae from being scared out of her mind.
“Why?” Tae’s voice didn’t quite come out. It was kind of a half-whisper, half-relieved sigh. She gave a self-conscious cough and asked again louder. “Why?”
The stranger looked surprised. “Why?” he blinked. Then he grinned like a cat and squatted down beside her leaning his elbows on his knees and letting his hands hang down. “Well, why would I hurt you?” he asked soundly genuinely interested in the answer to this question as he leaned in closer to Tae.
Tae subconsciously recoiled from his closeness. “Uh… well, aren’t you a… um, a… a v-vampire.” Her voice, which hadn’t started out with any real volume, shrank with each stuttered word until it couldn’t even be called a whisper.
Silence.
Tae nervously clutched the ground to keep herself from passing out due to anxiety.
“HAH!” Tae jumped about fifteen feet in the air and lifted her arms to make a feeble shield from the stranger. Nothing hit her. Slowly she opened her eyes to peek through her “shield.” Her mouth dropped open.
The beautiful, “suave” stranger was killing himself with laughter, rolling around on the ground. His once pristine, black suit was now a dirty, dingy, dark brown. Dazedly, Tae noted how lucky he was that there were no thorns on the ground where he was.
Where had the smooth, calm man from moments before gone? This guffawing boy looked only a couple years older than she was at seventeen. Tae sat there, transfixed until the stranger calmed down. Then he stood up, still grinning and once again offered Tae his hand.
“No, I’m not a vampire, Tae. Does that ease your conscience?” he asked. Tae shook her head no, looking for all the world like a shy, little, lost animal. The stranger laughed. “Your cute, will you dance with me?”
Tae blinked. “What?”
“Will you dance with me? Please, Taelyn?” he asked, still extending his hand. Tae shrank back more and looked down, away from his enchanting gaze. Quick as a flash, the stranger sobered and changed. “Please dance with me, love,” he said to her in the feather-soft whisper that had brought her there. Tae gulped and tried to catch the breath that the stranger had stolen. Tentatively, with her heart beating in her ear, Tae stretched her hand forward and softly placed it in his.
He smiled again, but it was different. This smile was warm, inviting, soft. Tae’s heart beat fast… again. Would her heart get no rest!?
The stranger lifted Tae up off the ground then scared the spirits out of her. He spun her around and brought her close, arms around her waist in a warm, close hug.
Tae’s knees went weak. She felt her cheeks flame. She couldn’t hear for the beating of her heart. ‘This isn’t fair!’ she thought, but then she caught the stranger’s gaze and all thought was swept away as they started to dance.
They danced! Tae felt like she was flying; twirling around with a grace that didn’t belong to her. She felt like a whirling ballerina, a swan, a lithe feline…
Until she tripped.
Embarrassed and afraid that the stranger would ridicule her, she looked up just in time to see him tripping over his own feet and falling down as well. She felt a laugh bubble up and soon she rolling on the ground laughing with the stranger.
When they were done with their laughing fit, the two sat up and drank a warm, chocolaty drink brought by the “shadowlings”—as the stranger called them—and sat against a log near the fire. The two sat there and talked… and talked… and talked…
The two talked until Tae’s voice was hoarse and when she could hardly talk anymore, they danced again. Tae learned the names of the shadowlings, saw the small, comfortable house that the stranger lived in, visited the forest across the fields where the shadow people lived; she learned so much and laughed so hard that she could have sworn she would keel over.
Nothing is more painful than realizing he meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to him. (Unknown)
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