Embrace Ch. 04

In the beginning, it's just mundane conversation. They compare perspectives of the court, laying bare intrigues and misunderstandings.

Amelia learns that she is not the only kindred that supports another in this way. That although Lady Eleanor is sworn to the service of her powerful liege, Justicar Tythos, by his command she must nightly offer her throat to slake the Methuselah's thirst of the lesser Prince Paracida. Poor Eleanor must hang on the prince's every tedious word lest he suspect the truth of her contempt for him. He appears to be the prince of nothing but lies, though it was different in the past.

The Tremere clan now number at least as many as the court kindred, doing business as they please and paying only lip service to Paracida. That is why Meryem bides in Vienna. She scries them and relays every move to Lord Tythos.

The near nightly practice of Necromancy at the safe house damages the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead. A few weeks after the cappadocian settles, the place becomes noticeably haunted. Amelia has been hearing and seeing spirits since she was a child and is used to keeping these rare observances to herself, but Meryem is too sharp to miss Amelia's poorly disguised horror at the many apparitions that cross her path.

As ever, the ancient kindred finds value and meaning in what others have discarded and takes the time to reassure Amelia that it is a rare gift indeed. It is likely the long bouts of sickness Amelia endured as a child have brought her close to death at times, thinning the shroud before her eyes were old enough to disbelieve it. Many find their sensitivity disappears after the embrace, but for some it intensifies with mastery of auspex. This discipline runs from the blood of Enoch, through all the childer of Arikel, Ashur and Micah. Meryem explains where auras come from, the significance of the colours with respect to the humours, which are themselves physical manifestations of the soul's life force.

Her frantic work seeks some ingenious way of transcending not only death but diablerie, working to circumvent the certain oblivion to which it condemns the victim. Her own sire fell to such an attack. All her childer too. If she does not succeed before her enemies find her, Meryem fears that her legacy will be nothing but ashes.

Amelia listens, enraptured as Meryem shares her knowledge of the very nature of the human condition and the soul's transient connection to the flesh. Being but fragments of a once greater being, souls choose to pass through the trials of mortality hoping to avoid oblivion. On these journeys, some gift of life, some kernel of truth perhaps, may satisfy them, give them the means to transcend their imperfections and become whole. When satisfied, a soul rests easily on the body like a bird on a branch. As soon as it realises that it needs no perch, it flies. If it cannot be satisfied, it must fall to oblivion or linger in the world beyond, at war with itself, fading and distorting beyond recognition.

Like Felix. Felix flits between lovable rogue and violent murderer. He told her in the very beginning that he was nothing and no-one. If her were an ordinary kindred, why would he need to trick Wolf Dietrich into embracing Amelia? The bitterness she first felt at being abandoned has long faded to acceptance. The more she learns from Meryem, the more she understands the true nature of her sire and his demands.

While Amelia stood to attention for days, submitting to Wolf Dietrich's cruelty as he beat her into torpor, Felix likely indulged his dark passion for fear and suffering, feeding on her pathos. This self defeating behaviour fuels his shadow soul and drags him deep into the lands of the dead until it is resolved. Thus the cycle of torment and silence will continue until the designs of both her wicked sires are satisfied and Amelia faces the last agony, the last injustice, of paying for their indiscretion with her life.

*

One night Meryem invites Amelia down stairs into the sanctum of the cellar. There is no light at all but Amelia gladly takes Meryem's icy hand and allows herself to be led.

"You're not afraid of the dark anymore." Meryem says as they stand together, hand in hand.

"You always know my heart." Amelia smiles. "I've always been afraid of what I might see, and now thanks to you, I accept it."

"Do you know why I've led you here?" Meryem's tone is less certain now.

Amelia feels blindly until they are face to face. Her mind is made up. She must say what needs to be said, but she is still saddened to have upset Meryem and chooses her next words more carefully.

"Do you know why I always come?"

Tension builds in Meryem's body. Amelia knows it well herself. The elder must feel cornered by that question. Would she even waste a minute on an ignorant neonate like Amelia but for her great need for kindred vitae?

Amelia rests her head on Meryem's shoulder, nestles her soft cheek into the sharp contours of the elder's prominent bones. She gently slips an arm beneath Meryem's loose garment to embrace her emaciated frame.

"Your kiss should be enough but it's not why I return, you know? The nights you take my vitae and send me away leave me so cold I could greet the sun. Every time I come I hope you might take more than vitae. I offer my secrets, myself, every time. My grief for the life I lost, my vain hope and my love. You must know my love for you, Meryem. It consumes my heart."

"Please, Childe." Meryem's normally measured words are thick with emotion. "Is it not duty? Does duty not..."

"Forgive me, I am done with duty my love. The whole sorry lot of them will chew me up and spit me out however dutiful I am. I would rather die in your arms than burn for their hypocrisy."

"You... you've barely begun to live." Meryem's composure breaks at last. "What's all this talk of dying?"

Though her very bones protest at the force of Meryem's touch Amelia submits to her lover's passion. Such deep understanding of her soul's desire. To be held, to be put in place, to belong in place, to be desired, and with all the finery stripped from her body, gathered up in those iron hard arms Amelia is content to lie with Meryem in the narrow confines of her lover's tomb.

The ancient body pressed against Amelia's gives no pretence at being anything other than what it is, even in the utter darkness. Patiently Meryem allows Amelia to explore her unmasked, reverently touching her and caressing her in return. Amelia marvels at the paper thin corpse flesh, the knife hard bones beneath. They lie together in that icy crypt for hours, allowing a physical intimacy neither of them knew they needed before this night, intimacy beyond the kiss, beyond sensation.

At last Amelia grazes her rising fangs against Meryem's wrist. Her lover makes the sweetest sound as eager teeth penetrate the glacial barrier of that ancient flesh. Amelia presses her own wrist against Meryem's half open mouth and eagerly accepts her kiss in return. There is peace in this. Their bodies, connected, their minds rapt with pleasure, their souls bound.

Meryem withdraws first, but Amelia greedily shifts in the narrow space, allowing Meryem to curl against her back, she continues to gently suckle the elder's wrist.

Meryem's icy whisper chills her shoulder.

"You are my peace, childe. And I am yours."

As the wrist pulls away from her hungry mouth Amelia whimpers. Meryem's hand wanders down, continuing to explore the contours of Amelia's youthful body, and Amelia allows it, that first taste of elder vitae still heavy as molasses on her tongue.

"Oh, love me Meryem." she breathes. "Please let it be true."

"Hush my lamb."

"Please..." Amelia begs, setting aside all the shame in her head for the desire in her heart. That word is all she has to convey her longing to be free, to be devoured entirely, saved from this waking death at last. I should be poured into you, she begs, because I belong to you, and they will have to find some other fool to suffer for them.

"Damn my soul. I do love you Amelia."

In the silence that follows Amelia forgets to breathe.

"Will you do it then? This is all I need, I've never been so sure of anything in my life, Meryem..."

"If only I could show you Childe. The miseries we endure so soon after the embrace are fleeting and mundane, you must rise above them, my darling."

Amelia despairs in silence. It was too much to ask for after all. Meryem gently strokes the tears from her cheeks and kisses her hair.

"I feel your passion, sweet Amelia. I would wish all the world away and remain at your mercy, and give you everything that's left of me. But you give me such comfort, my love. I never expected devotion or acceptance. My heart soars to know that when I'm gone, someone on this earth will sit in silence and remember this hideous visage with kindness. How can I ever bring myself to do as you ask?"

"But you can't leave me like this, the things you said, about the bird, I'm ready to fly with you, I will never be more ready, please..."

"Sweet love, you will be my beating heart. You will keep everything that we share together alive, everything I teach you. Cast these sorrows beneath your feet. Pave your path to a great destiny, I swear it, Amelia. You are more than this. Turn to me, lover. Promise me? Amelia?"

She sounds so lost then. Amelia turns and comforts her of course. Kisses the lips of lady death, kisses the tears from her sunken cheeks.

"Even if some monster takes you from me I will never forget you. Helpless as I am, I will spit on them. But I will make your name the last word on my lips. They won't understand it, will they? Soulless bastards. They will never believe I love you."

"Amelia..." Meryem pulls her too tight for comfort again. "I can barely believe it myself." She whispers. Amelia moans in anticipation as Meryem cups her breast and holds it tight in her icy grip. "I can picture your wide eyes, that first night your blood took my dignity, and I waited for the disgust, the revulsion to blossom in them, and it never came."

"You know, you're hurting..."

"Is this better?"

What is this? Amelia gasps as Meryem sharply pinches the very tip of her nipple. Yes it is better, now that she knows it is not mere carelessness. The excruciating pinch fades to a steady numbness as heat builds in her core. Her body slackens as she submits to its febrile desire for more of this treatment.

"Yes, but..." Amelia's head is pulled gently back by a handful of hair and her words tail off. She presses her belly against Meryem's and arches her back as far as the box allows.

The pinch becomes a gently circling finger, and as soon as her head is free to move Amelia seeks out Meryem's half open mouth to kiss. On the surface, Meryem embodies decay, perfectly suspended by desiccation. Inside, her blood is as wet as Amelia, but Meryem is no slave to passion. Amelia's nerves thrill as her body is manipulated, fingers pressing into the most sensitive places with carefully measured cruelty. Amelia only offers her soft yelps and cries as tribute to her lover's mouth. This strange state confuses her beast. Yes it hurts, but no, she doesn't want it to stop. Yes, it could be dangerous, and no, she doesn't know how far she wants this to go.

Meryem has her boney thumb pressed up against the tendon in Amelia's groin when she breaks off the kiss. Amelia's shrill acknowledgement that it feels like being stabbed there, echoes in the dark.

"I love you Meryem!" Amelia chokes back a sob as the pressure increases.

"I have seen your fate, it cannot end here. For my sake, you will love again. I can't rest unless you promise me you won't give up."

"But I can't!" Amelia rests her hand on Meryem's as it gouges her sensitive flesh. "If breaking me in half makes you feel better about that..."

The pain doesn't immediately end when Meryem releases the pressure. Amelia curls into her lover's embrace with the song of it still coursing through her nerves.

"Why?" Meryem asks.

"Because I won't give you permission to fail." Amelia says wearily. "I can wait for you. I won't pretend to understand how you're going to survive being diablerised but..."

"No-one survives being diablerised, Amelia. Whatever exists afterwards won't be someone you would recognise."

"But..."

"Be a good student and listen." Meryem kisses her ear gently. "The best case... in the absolute best case there will be a shared consciousness over which I... might have influence, failing that perhaps I might still gather knowledge. Then of course, this barely needs a mention, it could fail. Disappointing perhaps but relatively painless for me. The true worst case is that I succeed in making a near indestructible entity of myself but it becomes severed from the target, cast adrift in the void. I dread that. I fear it may be impossible for a soul to truly accept a bond with its destroyer. That however powerful the will, one's nature cannot be overruled."

Amelia pauses before replying just to give herself a chance to take in everything Meryem said. Even allowing for the cappadocian's grief at losing her home and all her childer, this is an insane plan. But then knowing Meryem is calculating and intelligent enough to see that for herself makes Amelia feel foolish pointing it out.

"You're looking at this all backwards, Meryem. Is it this idea of prophecy that has you tied up in knots?" Amelia cups Meryem's hand in hers. "What if someone declares you dead, but in fact you hide and then we go somewhere else together? Somewhere no one's ever heard of Meryem the Seer, or the poisonous Habsburgs, what if we sailed to Madagascar, or the Antipodes? Or Boston? And I could actually be a... whatever I am... haunted malkavian cum catiff ventrue bastard, but nobody would care? And you could invent a whole new person, you could be an exile from some colony... what?"

Amelia stops. It's a ridiculous idea, it would all fall apart the first time Paracida summoned them. She empties her head of such foolishness and tries to relax as Meryem resumes caressing her.

"No, my love, it's not ridiculous. It would be a perfectly reasonable idea if I hadn't given my word to Tythos. I must remain here."

"But you could explain to him, tell him what you've told me, tell him you've reconsidered! That it's no longer practical..."

"That is unlikely to help either of us. Lord Tythos is intimately familiar with my hopeless situation, and the only significant change is that I have found something to live for." Meryem pauses to initiate a more gentle and forgiving kiss that leaves Amelia wanting more. "He would soon take pains to resolve that. I am indebted to him. Without his intervention I would not have survived Jerusalem."

"It's too much, Meryem. So he saved your life, why should you endure a fate worse than death to pay it back?"

"Nobody forced me to agree to this. It is a risk we were both willing to take when I gave my word. It's the closest I will ever get to retribution for what they've done. Oh don't cry, my darling. We're so lucky to have found each other, even for these few hours, surely you can see that? How precious this is?"

"It's not fair." Amelia sniffs. "We have no future together, and I'm a distraction to you, aren't I? This little that we have could cost you everything if you're not ready in time."

"I am ready." Meryem says firmly. "The ritual is ready, it's as complete as I can make it anyhow. You will see in the coming weeks if fate allows, I might not need your vitae often but I still want you to come to me. In the little time we have left I want to give you the knowledge you need to use your gift to the full."

*

Whatever Amelia expected, it did not begin with emptying an entire bedroom of all it's furniture and grovelling on the parquet floor sweeping away every tiny mote of dust. Or scrubbing her body from head to foot with rainwater and dressing almost for the grave in stark white linen. Amelia doesn't ask why. The chances are it will become apparent in time, and unlike her ventrue masters, she trusts that Meryem's purpose is not simply to humiliate her. At last, she and Meryem kneel at the centre of this immaculate space and begin the more difficult task of clearing her mind. Then finally, when Amelia has stilled her chattering thoughts to Meryem's satisfaction, the elder draws out a narrow leather pocket book and sets it between them on the floor.

"Don't touch it. Yet." Meryem says firmly.

Amelia observes the curious object, and then Meryem's stern face. She doesn't want to disappoint, but the book appears unremarkable.

"When you've seen ghosts before, it has been a combination of their desperate efforts, and random fluctuations in the shroud. Like any other discipline, the blood enhances your strength."

That makes sense to Amelia, necromancy needs a little push.

"Take control of your gift when you are ready, childe. There is no hurry. Don't look for what's not there, just be ready to see."

There really is nothing remarkable about the book. On the edge of her vision in the corner of the room Amelia spots a pair of silver grey boots. She follows them up and sees the translucent figure of a uniformed soldier. A lurid splash of silver cascades down his trousers from his stomach where a gaping hole reveals his glistening spine. A similar gruesome tear at his throat is almost bloodless

He was a handsome man. Amelia recognises his face at once. It's the ghoul that Wolf Dietrich had torture Catherine, or at least it was. Whatever they pretend to be, the kindred of Vienna sell life cheap. Wolf-Dietrich or Catherine, someone made this man suffer before he died. No wonder his spirit can't rest.

She looks away, and uses the rhythm of each sharp breath to calm herself. When she dares to look again the man is kneeling within arm's reach.

"I'm sorry, Meryem. I don't think I can do this."

"Alright Childe." Meryem says quietly. "No-one will force you to continue."

Amelia's fears are soothed by this calm acceptance. Meryem is sharing what little she can of her own world, nothing has changed. The ghosts are always there, however difficult they are to look at. She looks at Meryem instead.

"I knew this man."

It's been over a year now since that last beating. Her skin crawls with the thought of how her sire saw her, nothing but flesh. Wolf-Dietrich and his mind games, using this man's lust to heighten her fear.

"So quick to judge." Meryem says kindly. "You saw him once, saw the worst of him. Look at him now."

"Can he hear us?" Amelia asks.

"You've done a beautiful job clearing this room of all contamination, all the interference of the living, so yes, I should hope so."

"And to what purpose..."

"The two key elements of this type of magic are sympathy and authority." Meryem rests a clawed hand on the book. "Sympathy first and foremost. The wraith remains connected to a few key objects or people that were significant to it during its lifetime. Damage to those objects is incredibly stressful for it. The corpus of the wraith and its fetters are as one."

Despite the fear on the ghost's face he becomes agitated as Meryem touches the book. Amelia flinches as the spirit moves closer.

"Authority is not so easy to explain." Meryem says more firmly. The man stops as if caught by some unseen force. "I won't bore you with the philosophy of it. Suffice to say, there is order to all things. You cannot achieve direct command yet. For you, dialogue and mutual benefit are more useful. Here. Take the fetter."

Amelia takes the little book from Meryem and the ghost is able to move again. Who knows if he remembers Amelia?

"Ask him." Meryem says.

Amelia finally summons the courage to meet the dead man's eyes. There is a spark of recognition there.

"Do you remember me?" she asks.