My Little Ventrue Pt. 03 Ch. 13

After sex, of course. God damn she was tired, but god damn tonight had been such wild ride, part of her felt energized. She'd jumped a giant spider monster, fucking tore into it, gotten dirty with its blood — still on her — and had hurt it. She'd hurt some horrible monstrosity thing that came straight out of a nightmare. Well, not technically, according to her new monster friend, but still, the thing was nightmare-ish and terrifying. She pitied the poor sap who it'd possessed; if you could call it possession.

And all that post-life-threatening-situation-but-you-kicked-its-ass energy made her want to go back to Julias and snuggle into his arms. Let the energy dissipate, fade away before the sun came up, Julias's chest pressed to her back, arms wrapped around her... maybe lying on top of her, giving her that deep grind, balls deep inside her, and she'd be soaking—

Fucking god she had a problem. Couldn't go five minutes without thinking about sex.

Course all of that tasty sex goodness would have to wait. She still had Fiona hooked with one arm, Athalia with the other, and she was carrying them to Azamel's place. Azamel, grandma monster, the weird person in all this. Fiona, Triss understood. The werewolves, she understood, especially now. And she understood the Kindred and their games. But Azamel, the fuck was her game?

"I think, after this, I'm needing to find a boyfriend," Fiona said.

Ha, wasn't just Triss then, thinking about boyfriends.

"Cute girl like you doesn't have one?"

"No, it's... it's hard."

"What's hard?"

"Being around folk, humans. It's..." The redhead sighed, and her body grew heavy hanging off of Beatrice's shoulders. Course heavy was subjective and the girl was as light as a feather to a Nosferatu, but still, felt like the girl was getting weighed down by something. Which was very odd for Fiona, normally so damn uplifting and fun, Triss figured she was full of helium.

"Kindred don't usually date kine, humans," Beatrice said. "Recipe for disaster. Sometimes we change them into ghouls, so they live forever and can be a persistent source of food. And sometimes we date them." Though, far as she knew, if there were any Kindred ghoul relationships in Dolareido, they were strictly sexual. Romantically, it'd be a pretty weird thing, considering what drinking Kindred blood did to a kine's mind.

Considering what it did to Kindred mind's too, Triss. Fuck, she was going to have to talk to Damien, apologize or something. Saved his second life, sure, but that didn't change she'd done something really, really fucked up to him.

"I cannae do that, that's nae a thing Begotten can do. And with humans, it's... I... I'm so hungry. If there was someone I could punish, someone Vrall could punish right now, I'd... I'd..." She shook her head and let it hang all the more.

Judging from the sounds of it, Fiona had done some pretty bad things when Vrall got hungry.

"You need to learn to feed correctly," Athalia said with a snort. "You'll get us all killed attracting unwanted attention."

Triss twitched a little at that, unwanted attention. Jacob mentioned the concept of hunters to her before, humans who knew about vampires, or werewolves, or she supposed monsters. Hell monsters were an even older concept, more well known idea than vampires or werewolves. Been around since nightmares had been around, Triss imagined. And so too were humans who thought they could fight those nightmares.

Hard to imagine a human standing up to the spider monster hiding inside Fiona, but humans had this nasty habit of being really, really smart when properly motivated.

Fiona shook her head as she turned to look at the woman next to her. "Vrall... she... doesn't ken that. She's from a time when folk feared her, but also worshiped her."

"Then this will be rough, because you're going to have to learn how to not kill every target. You'll have to learn how to take a sip, not guzzle. A nibble, not devour the whole thing. You need to learn to accept a little hunger as a normal, every day thing you'll have to deal with from now on."

"How do I do that? I... Vrall, she needs to punish folk, bad folk, folk who deserve it."

"Well for starters, instead of killing them, try letting them live."

Fiona groaned but nodded. "I'll... I'll have to eat almost every day, if I can only hurt folk, nae kill them."

"Welcome to the club. You gorge yourself, and you'll invite trouble... but, stop eating or starve yourself, and you'll invite trouble. I don't know what sort of insane history Vrall has, but you're in the modern world now, and you have to find a balance. Too much, and someone will show up to kill you, your horror, in her sleep. Too little, and your horror is going to spread nightmares to the edge of the city."

"... what do ye feed on?" Fiona said. "Ye're Eshmaki like me."

Athalia sighed and shook her head. "Let's talk when we're back with Azamel."

"Yeah yeah, keep your secrets." Triss shrugged, which lead to comical results with both girls hanging off of her. "Whatever, we got out of that shithole alive, so ain't nothing you can say to kill my mood."

Fiona laughed too, but it died off as she let her weight drag again. "Noo don't tempt fate like that!"

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~~Natasha~~

She considered waiting for Matt and Art. They spent over twenty-four hours together, trapped in that pit, thinking they were dead, goners. Not long enough to get all weepy and think their lives were over. But long enough for her to talk about personal stuff, tell them about Vivi, and how she regretted siring her; too young and immature to have a childe. They laughed at her, said she was an idiot, and other indirect compliments like that.

She enjoyed their time together. A lot. She hadn't laughed like that since she'd gotten to know Jessy. They were a couple of fun, silly but intelligent guys. Who were good at cards.

The memory of playing cards in the dark, with their flashlight their only source of light, and their doom on their doorstep, was too funny, and she laughed again as she sneaked out of the abandoned section of the subway and back onto the streets. And of course the moment she did, her phone beeped with a lot of messages. Jack, and Jessy trying to get in contact with her.

First things first. She messaged Jessy back, said she was fine, that she'd fill her in tomorrow night. Then a message for Jack that he'd get once he was out of the tunnels: thanks for everything. The kid was proving to be everything Julias said he would be, and more. She'd have to visit Julias later, and thank him.

Julias and Jessy, her old companions, her fellow right hands. Now she was hanging with werewolves and monsters instead. Well, not entirely true. She was having orgies with Jessy, so that was... well, even more weird. She laughed to herself as she stepped into the crowd of South Side, and began a long walk home. What was it she couldn't quite settle her mind on, something in her brain running hamster wheels and making her turn recent events over and over again, in random order at that.

Nearly dying might have something to do with it. Meeting new friends and making huge changes in her life probably did more.

She looked down at her phone, and settled beside a lamppost as people walked past. Vivienne's number. She used to stare at it and sigh to herself, about how that relationship had been weakened by the embrace, and broken by Vivi joining Lucas for a while. Broken beyond repair when Natasha left the Invictus?

She sent her a text. Something short, nice, simple: hope you're doing ok.

She put the phone away. Not going to stare at it waiting for the response, nope. She wasn't that person now. She'd grown up. A little. Maybe. Smiling, she shook off her shoulders and headed back to her apartment. She'd tell the Prince about what happened tomorrow night, and Jessy, and maybe tell them about her two new friends Art and Matt.

Arturo Ibarra and Matthew Wilson. Not a word to them as she walked past them in the tunnels, and saw everyone sitting around Stephanie's body. Barely a body anymore. Split in half from the skull down, and the spider creature's weird scythe arms weren't sharp enough to do that cleanly. The werewolves had been mourning a pile of flesh. Sickening. Depressing.

Did she know them well enough to comfort them? No idea, no idea at all. For all she knew, the werewolves would get over their friend's death in a single day, or less. Or maybe they'd respect her death with song, and be glad for it to be in battle, on the hunt, like something an ancient Spartan might do.

She nodded to herself, and headed home. Sun would be up soon, and she was too old to be caught unawares by impending sunrise. But, as she walked the path home, she brought out her phone again — not checking for a message from Vivi, nope nope — and updated her to-do list: get Matt and Art some phones.

She wondered how Antoinette would react to the news. Not that she didn't probably already know; she generally knew everything going on in her city. But, she wouldn't be too upset, right?