She Tears Herself

It’s my fault. Somehow, things have turned upside down. Rhaven and Nareth tried to heal Severus after he savaged himself. My fault, again. He wouldn’t have done so if I hadn’t encouraged Redd to touch him, to determine by his degree of revulsion and longing whether she had a soul. But touch she did and as a result he tore himself. I assented to his healing. Nareth, this Nareth-Not Nareth Chylde, asked permission. I told her yes, use the passion of Larissa. Take it from the flames. Lar had been able to heal Severus once before, working in tandem with Rhaven. I couldn’t leave him lying eviscerated on the Library floor.

The healing worked, or worked as well as it ever does given Severus’ perpetual wounds. But what remained of Larissa was lost forever. Completely destroyed. That passion had been all that remained of her mortal form, lingering where the wards once stood, in the flames of the hearth. When it was taken, the Old Woman in the Walls shook. She nearly tore the building apart, threatening all of us in her charge, until she took me through the flame, reached out and snatched the passion of one less gentle and loving from the mind of Nareth: the Countess Báthory. Erzsébet. Now I wonder what I have done. Where once the heart of the flame was Eros, it is now bloodlust. My fault.

It is a sad and bitter irony that now Severus is feeding, while I am not. He found a lycan, a willing one, and somehow the healing impelled him forward to a place where no amount of pleading on my part had been able to take him. I could have compelled him, but I would never have done so, so great is his self-loathing as an Incubus. But who will impel me? I’m bone weary and ravenous. I haven’t fed since the time of Pestilence and some avid spirit still stirs insatiate within me. I nearly killed Grr. I pulled from him to the point of blindness and hemorrhage. What if I do it again? The dark yet whispers to me and I hear the pan flute. Jack’s blade yet sings and its twin calls louder. I touch the stone of Eden in my pocket and wonder was I ever in the Garden?