Shotgun Shine [COMPLETE]

[Danielle Vida]

Prompt List

• Mirror
  
• Autumn
  
• Break
  
• Stuffed Animal
  
• Last Hope
  
• Sacrifice
  
• Dread
  
• Tears
  
• Breaking the Rules
  
• Memory

[Danielle Vida]

Mirror

This thread takes place in present time.


  For someone who stayed up until wee hours of the morning, Danielle sure woke up early enough. Ash wasn't even in bed, which left Danielle assuming that he was either out or downstairs tending to the paperwork that the Hollow did have. She often forgot that it was a business, because as of late, it had become her home. She dragged herself out of bed, random articles of clothing dropping behind her as she stepped lightly towards the bathroom. The room was dark and mostly silent - a fan left on for her benefit, because Danielle had been unable to sleep without white noise, was whirring softly. Her fingers found the little switch on it, and she turned it off. She did not appreciate being blasted with cold air directly following a warm shower. Dawn's blue light crept through the window in the room, and outside she could hear birds chirping gaily to one another from the fire escapes.

She turned on the shower, still somewhat bleary-eyed, struggling to run through an itinerary of what needed to be done during the day. Ash, no doubt, would sleep for a good portion of it, the night owl, which meant that she got stuck with a list of errands to run that Dave felt he was too important for (and he would say it comically often enough). She actually remembered that she was supposed to be meeting Darren for lunch to try and work through some of the things that had been going on with his vampire problem, and her nose wrinkled a little as the sound of the shower turning on echoed in the bathroom. He'd been hanging around with her cousin a lot, and while she and Andrew had been good enough not to remain in the same room together, it was creating tension that she knew would eventually need to be dealt with.

Danielle hung around in the jets of warm water before she grabbed for her shampoo, running the slick, purple liquid through her chin-length hair a few times. Blonde was a hard colour to maintain, natural or not, and she'd enjoyed begging Ash to pick her up the purple shampoo, especially when he'd demanded to know what'd possessed her to dye her hair purple. It was something only women understood, she decided, shaping her hair into a mohawk before laughing and rinsing it out. The conditioner came next, this time not an offensively bright secondary colour, and then she rinsed that out, too.

Once she'd finished, she went through the rest of the motions of cleaning, complete with her neon yellow puff that she'd snagged on sale at a local bath store. She laughed again, realizing that she'd turned Ash's shower into a small beauty salon, and with a twist, shut the water off, stepping out of the shower. She reached for her towel, and found that it was gone, which caused her lips to twist into a frown.

"Chere, you really need to pay more attention. I couldn't have been any louder if I were an elephant - did you not hear me?" Ash's voice said, causing her to jump back into the shower for a moment. She closed her gray eyes, rolling them as she poked her head around the shower curtain. A pale hand held her blue towel out, shaking it at her for her to take it.

"Mm, maybe next time you should try doing something other than simply standing there, waiting for me to sense your presence. When I'm in the shower, I'm having beauty time, and I know I'm not precisely what you'd consider a "girly girl", but I am entitled all the same," she chastised, wrapping herself in the towel before stepping back out to face Ash. She couldn't help but smile, however stern her voice had been. It felt strange still that she was so modest around him, but they were going as slow as possible with whatever 'relationship' they had started, so she couldn't really fault herself for it. She was still trying to become accustomed to a lot of it, some parts more than others.

She turned her back to him, reaching out to wipe the fog off of the mirror, and sighed a little - she'd forgotten to turn the bathroom fan on, which meant she'd have to wait to blow dry her hair, or else it'd be a blind endeavour, which wasn't a thought she enjoyed. It didn't matter though, because she felt Ash's chin on her shoulder, and she turned slightly to give him a small kiss on the cheek.

"Big plans today?" he asked. "You're certainly up early."

She watched his eyes study her for a moment, and then smirked. "I'm the do-bitch today, remember? Pick up accounting documents, grab Darren for lunch and our 'vampire talk', and about a dozen other things I agreed to without realizing I'd agreed to them..." she trailed off, the smirk turning into a genuine smile. "I don't mind, though. I'd rather you sleep for a change. Really, I know you're immortal and all, but it wouldn't hurt you to rest," she said, clicking her tongue against her teeth a little as she reached up to smooth away a piece of wayward hair from his eyes.

"You don't have to, you know," he offered, tone sly. "You could always just stay here and be lazy." He smiled to her, and to anyone else, they may have taken it for an innuendo, but Danielle knew better - the idea of laying in bed and napping was more appealing than anything else she could think of, and Ash knew as much - he was the same way.

Danielle turned her upper body more, leaning in for a real kiss, and caught the reflection they shared in the mirror from the corner of her eye. Both as lovely and pale as ever, like ghosts crafted of fine diamond and magic, and yet both of them were powerful - their magics like unstoppable forces of nature when provoked. If a picture were worth a thousand words, the mirror held in it at that very moment an epic story, fire and ice, both balancing eachother out with their mercy and severity.

"I think I can sacrifice a few minutes of daylight to relax," she conceded, enjoying the cool feeling of his skin against hers. She reached up as she followed him out, flicking off the light in the bathroom - the mirror went black, the portrait lost to time and memory.

[Danielle Vida]

Autumn

This thread takes place in the  past.

  High-pitched screams filled the kitchen window, and Laura Smoke dropped her dishrag from her hands, rushing outside to the back yard where her children and their cousins were. She stopped, her hand on her heart, as Marcus Vida held his younger sister Danielle by one leg, upside down in a pile of leaves. She screamed, trying to pull herself up to hit him, and finally succeeded, punching him square in the face. He dropped her with a startled cry and a laugh, and they both vanished into the massive leaf mountain that they'd spent all day building.

She sighed, relief washing over her. Elanora clung to her skirt, resting her face on her mother's leg, watching on. She wasn't as interested in the leaves as she was in helping her mother in the kitchen, though she wrinkled her nose as her brothers trampled the leaves madly, trying to dig out Marcus and Danielle before they 'were eaten'.

  "Okay," Danielle called. "Okay, okay, I think there are bugs in here," she said, springing out from the leaves. She sent them in all directions, a flurry of movement as she tried to knock them off of her sweater. Reds, golds, browns - they floated away from her as she struggled to find whatever had been crawling on her again so that she might squish it. She couldn't find anything, but she was done with the leaves for the moment.

Danielle wandered away from the pile as the boys continued to crash into it, and sat down on the porch swing, rocking back and forth by herself. She twirled a strand of her long blonde hair between her fingers, looking over at Laura and Ela curiously, gray eyes narrowed and skeptical of them. Celeste had never treated Danielle like that. She looked away as the two figures departed back into the kitchen, and sighed a little as she watched the boys play.

She was becoming aware, even in her young age, that Marcus was clearly favoured. She didn't understand why Matthew, Riese and Ela didn't have to vie for their mother's affection quite like she had to. She was only ten; it didn't make sense. Why was her life so complicated when she should be mindlessly jumping into leaf piles or off of diving boards or whatever else people her age did? Because she was a Vida, that was why. She could hear Celeste's voice now, chastising her - "A Vida doesn't get too attached to the luxuries of life, because she or he doesn't need them to survive." She wrinkled her nose.

Laura's call of dinnertime drew all of the children inward, and they slowly trudged up the porch, kicking off their shoes and peeling off their outer layers, because they had found bugs in the leaf pile after all. Danielle remained on the swing, and Marcus hung back, dropping down next to her in such a way that he threw the seat out of the rhythm that Danielle had found, causing it to jar violently from left to right until it smoothed itself out.

  "You know, it wouldn't kill you to try and have fun," her brother said, looking at her with his impossibly hazel eyes. Danielle always liked the colour of them - they were positively olive sometimes, while at other times they seemed so golden that she wouldn't have known him any different from a wolf if she'd seen one.

She sighed a little, and shrugged. "What's the point?" she asked. "We'll go back, mother will chastise us for playing carelessly, and then we'll go back to our normal lives. I'm ten, Marcus, but I'm not stupid. I know how this works," she replied, giving him a flat sort of gaze that cut his heart a little.

  "That's not fair to say," he said softly, scooting closer to her. He shook his head, and then prodded her a little. "Just because the Smokes have it different doesn't mean that we can't enjoy our own lives. We're strong, Danielle. We're fierce. We're fighters - we aren't machines, though. I think mom will loosen up once you start getting into the routine of things. You have to stop fighting her all the time - it gives me a headache," he complained, though he smiled.

Danielle shrugged a little, and then looked at him. "I just... I just wish she loved me like Laura loves them," she said bitterly.

Marcus looked a little taken aback by how serious his little sister's words were. He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her head into his chest, and rested his chin on her hair. "Well, whatever happens, I love you. I don't care what you do," he affirmed, holding her tightly.

Danielle nodded, hugging her brother fiercely. "Okay," she said softly. "Okay."

[Danielle Vida]

Break

  This thread takes place in present time.

  The click-click of Darren tapping the corkscrew on the counter was going to drive Danielle mad, if the rat-tat-tat of the heavy rainfall outside didn't do it first. The Hollow was dead inside - it'd been raining for three whole days, now. The city had picked up over twelve inches; some sort of tropical storm had been blown northward and had been making its way up the Eastern seaboard with some sort of vengeance - it had effectively ruined the weekend that they'd had planned. It was hard to do a party that involved a lot of outdoors fireworks from the rooftop (with proper city ordinances, of course - the whole block of bars and establishments was supposed to participate) with the rain coming down like it was.

  "Stop!" she hissed through her teeth finally, hand reaching out for the corkscrew, intending to snatch it from Darren's fingertips. The shifter, however, was too fast, and Danielle grabbed at empty airspace as he flung himself backwards and out of his chair, the corkscrew behind his back like some sort of toy he was trying to hide from the teacher.

  "You little shit!" she screamed. That did it. She scrambled over the counter after him, but he had already shifted and the corkscrew was held delicately between massive white teeth and a fine pink tongue, shaking a little as the dark feline leaped back over the bar and came to rest complacently on the floor across the room.

  Ping. The corkscrew dropped to the floor in front of him. His tail twitched as green eyes surveyed her, challenging her.

  "ASH!" she finally exploded. "I'M GOING TO KILL HIM!"

  "Mmkay," came the bored reply from the back office.



  Persephone trotted down the street in the rain, hands thrust into her back pockets as humans ran by her, covering their heads and ducking under soggy newspapers. She watched them curiously, amused almost, wondering why on Earth anyone would want to hide from this? She loved the rain! Jaguars were notoriously good swimmers anyways, and so she literally sprang step by step towards the door of the Hollow, to see her most favourite person in the whole wide world....



  Danielle and Darren both looked up mid-tumble; she was on bottom with the massive cat on top, claws in of course. She'd finally thrown the corkscrew under something he couldn't bat it out from, and he'd taken to chasing her around instead. Both of them froze, like two cats caught on the counter - Darren scrambled off of her and sat up on his haunches indignantly, like nothing at all had happened.

Danielle was a little more slow to rise, head cocking slightly as she looked at the drenched woman who'd come into the bar. She was slender, tall, with such vibrant green eyes - like Darren's, actually. "Well, now," she said. She sat up only enough so that she was cross-legged on the floor, arms up to support her. Lazily, she tossed her blonde hair from in front of both eyes back to its normal position of covering just her right, and arched the brow that was seen.

  "Darren, looks like she's brought you a present," Danielle said, nodding to the sopping girl.

Persephone produced a small alfoil, ball from her pocket, holding it out as though it was a most treasured orb of magical goodness. She cupped it in her palms, fingers folding around it momentarily and then splaying out to reveal it.

  "Play?" she asked, eyes bright and wide with hopeful excitement.



  An hour later, Danielle, Persephone and Darren (in their human forms) sat lined up on the bar, each as drenched as Persephone had been initially. Persephone didn't seem to mind, elbows locked as her fingers gripped the rolled edge of the countertop, swinging her feet back and forth. Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang-bang. The heels connected with the underside of the counter as she moved; she was as happy as could be.

Darren and Danielle, naturally, were less pleased. Dave stood before them, massive arms crossed over his chest, a large bucket that had once been full on its side at the floor near his feet. Water and ice spread in a large puddle beside him, but the brunt of it was being worn fashionably by the three guilty parties.

  "When Ash said that it would be fine to take a break, I don't think this is what he meant," the werewolf boomed.

Danielle, Darren, and Persephone all exchanged glances with eachother, and then pelted Dave with lemon wedges, lime slices, and sticky Maraschino cherries they'd scooped up from behind the counter.

[Danielle Vida]

Stuffed Animal

  This thread takes place in the past.


  "Do you really need all of this?" the man asked her as Danielle sifted through blocks of C4. She glanced up, gray eyes narrowing, the colours somewhere between a silvery hue that winter waters held and something like a slate towards the center of her iris - they resembled Fae eyes, almost unnatural in their brilliance. They were unsettling, but they didn't seem to shake the man much - and they shouldn't have. He'd gotten looks from his daughter like that time and time again, those annoyed stares, those 'why do you even bother asking' stares. His voice was grainy, aged and tired-sounding, but somewhat interested, at the very least, especially after that look she'd given him.

  "Absolutely," she replied with a smile. She held out an envelope that was filled with their agreed payment. "Extra for your troubles, as always," she said brightly. "Thanks Leo! What would I do without you?" she beamed, gathering up the explosives into her backpack. It was neon pink and black, and matched the gym clothing she wore perfectly.

  "Probably a lot less collateral damage," he offered, brows raised as he thumbed through his money.

When Danielle popped out of the back door of the building just off of 52^nd avenue, nobody would have ever suspected she carried enough explosives to level several city blocks on her person. She nearly skipped to the black Porsche she'd parked several blocks off, tossing the backpack carelessly into the passenger seat and dropping the top back before shoving her sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose and smiling brightly.

  "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," she sang gaily to herself, driving like a madman through the streets of the city. One dog, one child, two cop cars, and several nuns had almost fallen victim to her front bumper, but it wasn't for her lack of trying that they were narrowly missed - they'd all just been too fast for her. She hissed through clenched teeth as she did swerve for a cat - she'd always been partial to the animals.

Bump-bump.

  "Damn!" she exclaimed, looking behind her. She'd swerved intentionally and hit the cat on accident! Well, how's that for luck? She rolled her eyes and sank back down into her seat, headed for the state line. Tonight she would be in New Jersey for some fun vampire hunting. She glanced down to the backpack and the papers that poked out from beneath it, the file folder for the particular vampire that she was after laid out. Once she got to the apartment she'd rented for the short time she'd be there, she sat down in her beanbag chair with the Disney Channel Presents on TV, gray eyes moving slowly down the pages.

Wait. She knew she recognized his name from somewhere. She sat up so fast she almost kicked her bowl of popcorn over, and reached out to steady it as she tried to re-situate herself. A quick phonecall later, she had herself more information than she knew previously, including what she'd already suspected - this particular vampire that she'd been assigned to was a lower-level toad for another, much older vampire she'd run across before. She felt her heart skip a beat as she skimmed his personal information. She knew just what to do, here.



  "So, what you're telling me is that you'll let me live if I just give you his location?" James said into the phone, hushed as his wife and daughter sat in the next room playing a board game. He glanced at the clock on the wall and swallowed nervously, still a reflex from his human years. He'd only been a vampire for five years, but his wife had stood by him. His daughter was born after he'd already been changed, but she didn't seem to register that daddy didn't age, and that was fine with him.

  "Of course," Danielle replied, walking slowly from her Porsche, something small and pink in her hands. She tossed it gently, carelessly in the dark; the streetlights, for some reason, hadn't come on yet, and so she walked, a solitary figure against the black of the night, something small going up in the air, and down again - up in the air, and down again. A pair of floppy ears flipped to and fro as she threw it around - a small, pink stuffed bunny.

  "I think you're bluffing," James said boldly. "I think you're one of the bottom-feeders he's pissed off, and you decided to take it out on me." He puffed his chest a little, despite the fact that the woman on the phone couldn't see him.

  "Ah, James," she sighed. "Your vampire bravado won't get you out of this one. Did it ever occur to you that there are other things out there to be afraid of than your boss?" she challenged, voice cold with hints of laughter. She stopped her steps for a moment, glancing up at the address in front of the house where she stood. No, not the right one. She started walking again. "You know, it's almost kind of pathetic to see the way you're protecting him. I'm offering you an out. You should only be so lucky. Take it," she urged.

James considered this for the briefest of moments, but he shook his head. Nobody'd ever betrayed Vincent and gotten away with it. The vampire had a reputation for making people scream, and James didn't like the way he looked at his family when he dropped by for surprise visits. "Just adorable, an angel, how perfect," he'd sing, taking his daughter Lisa up into his arms to tickle her. He did it because he knew it disturbed James, he was sure of it. Opening his mouth and saying it, though, would have meant that her laughter would turn to screams. James' mind reeled, realizing that his thoughts were very open for others listening in - had Vincent heard him? Had he heard him consider her offer?

  "Fuck you," he hissed finally. "You're full of shit. You don't even know where I am, or how to find me; you act like you're so informed, and you can't even find him," he snapped.

Danielle shut the door of her Porsche and turned the car on, sighing as she switched ears on the phone. The pink rabbit was gone from her possession now, somewhere - she'd abandoned it for other endeavors, it seemed. "The problem, James, is that I'm not willing to run into Midnight after him," she educated him, tone slow and patient, but informative in a patronizing sort of way.

  "If I could catch him outside of it, your information would be worth my time, but... I can see you'd rather just waste it. I gave you an option to help, and you declined. I'm sure your loyalty will be considered," she offered callously, a laugh clipping her words. She sped the Porsche as fast as she could out of the subdivision, and then onto the interstate. "Too bad you won't be around to warn him," she sang.



The phone went dead in James' hands. He let out a frustrated cry, eyes black with anger as he threw it into the opened garage door. It careened off the back of his wife's Tahoe with a loud noise and shattered, shards of plastic going all over the place.

  "James?" his wife called from the living room. "Everything okay?"

  "Yes, yes," he replied gruffly. He waited to regain his composure before going in to see his two ladies.

Lisa peered out the front window at something, and then looked back at her mother. Her neon-coloured plastic game pieces were scattered all over the floor, forgotten momentarily as she eyed the strange object on the porch.

  "What is it, baby?" Jenny asked, glancing up from trying to clean up the game.

  "Mommy, something's on the porch," she said. "Can I see what it is?" she asked. She was already reaching for the door. Jenny got up and intercepted her, hand on the knob. She gave her a warning look when she started to whine, peering out of the peephole at it.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed, flicking on the porch light. "It's a stuffed animal!" And she laughed at herself for being scared suddenly, thinking it had been a dog or something.

From the kitchen, James heard the door open. He got up and strode to the edge of the living room, where Jenny was sitting on her knees, eye-level with Lisa, an adorable stuffed bunny in his daughter's hands, fluffy and pink and as cute as a button.

And.... ticking.

  "Mommy, it's making a noise!" Lisa said. She held the rabbit to her ear, trying to hear for the --



  "Nobody knows how the explosion happened, but sources say that they found enough plastic explosives on site to take out the entire neighborhood," Carrie Collins' voice rang on the TV in Leo's small workshop. "It's one of the biggest tragedies we've seen here at Channel 7 news. Our hearts go out to the families lost in this horrible act of terrorism. And now, ladies and gentlemen, we will go live to the Secretary of Defense as he.."

  "Collateral damage," Leo grunted to himself, before flicking the television off.

[Danielle Vida]

Last Hope

  This thread takes place in present time.

  She shouldn't have waited this long. She should have done it right before she left Frost, actually, but she'd had to drop off something for Darren to, ugh, Andrew, and she'd wanted to do it with a quickness, so that meant no lingering or staying to chat. She didn't know how it was that she got tricked into running that errand anyways, but really, it was a low blow. She knew it wouldn't have been Ash that had put her up to it, at least. It had probably been Darren's idea from the beginning, given the last time she'd made fun of him.

Really, though, it was hard not to laugh at his ridiculous zebra stripe on the back of his head. It was lucky that his hair grew back so fast, or she would have never stopped cackling about it.

She drummed her fingers on her steering wheel impatiently, watching the lights in front of her move sluggishly through - green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red - over and over, until finally she was first in line for the freeway. She listened to the clicking of her left blinker as she squirmed uncomfortably in the leather seat of the Porsche. This was the last time that she didn't go to the bathroom before she made a drive in four o'clock traffic.

The light finally turned green, and the whine of the Carrera was music to Danielle's ears as she hit the blacktop. She ignored the speedometer climbing, drifting around cars effortlessly, trying to rush towards the exit she desired. She refused to stop at a gas station - those places were disgusting. She wasn't one-hundred percent sure that her Vida blood would stave off whatever she could possibly catch from one of those unclean toilers, and she wasn't willing to gamble and find out.

Gritting her teeth, she pushed through the rest of the traffic until she got back to her apartment. She did the pee-pee dance inside the elevator, and when the doors opened, she sprang forward and ran down the end of the hall to her door. She reached into her jacket pocket for her keys and pulled out... nothing.

  "SHIT!" she screamed. She'd locked her keys in her car. She was in so much of a hurry that she'd locked her fucking keys in the Porsche. How was that even possible with her awesome Witch Spidey-Senses? Shouldn't she have known that was going to happen and avoided it? Steam nearly shot out of her ears as she danced around the hall, trying to figure out what the best course of action was.

She finally made the decision to go back down and just bust the window out in the car; she could replace it. It would be fine, totally fine. Her bladder protested horribly as she ran back to the elevator, toes tilting inward as she groaned. She knew how dogs felt, suddenly, when they cried and barked at the door to be let out. Suddenly, the thought struck her like a bolt of lightening - she had a spare key stashed in the plant by her door!

  "GAH!" she screamed, punching the elevator buttons until the mechanism groaned to a stop at the fourth floor. She growled - her apartment was on the sixth floor. She pressed the button to go back up, but the doors just dinged loudly at her, opening and closing again. The maintenance light came on, and she let loose a string of colourful explicatives, punching the door hard enough to leave a dent. She was going to have to go up the stairs, and in her condition, that could be a very dangerous endeavour, indeed.

She dragged her feet up the steps, each motion agonizing. She couldn't remember a time where she had to piss so badly that it affected the way she moved, but this was ridiculous. Time seemed to pass at a glacial pace, and seconds became minutes as she propelled herself up the stairs. When she saw the door that lead to the sixth floor, she lunged for it, making a strange run-walk down the hall towards her apartment door, eyes fixated on the plant.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease, she thought to herself, dropping to her knees. She picked up the tiny bamboo plant, and gasped in success as the small, shining silver key winked at her from the embedded spot on the carpet where it had lain since the day she'd moved in. She practically flung her door off of the hinges as she dashed into her apartment - the back swing was enough to shut it on its own, no extra help necessary. She rushed back to her bathroom, slamming the door behind her, too.

She vowed never, to ever, ever drink three bottles of water inside of two hours again without at least attempting to go to the bathroom first.

[Danielle Vida]

Sacrifice

  This thread takes place in the past.


  There were five pairs of eyes staring at Danielle - each a different colour, each different sizes, some with makeup and some without, but all of them were wide with fear. To someone else, someone who was not used to being in such a position, the feeling may have been a little overwhelming, but for Danielle Vida, it was nothing out of the ordinary - Especially not as of late.

Prague, half-passed Midnight. She walked around the couch where the girls all sat, tapping her gun lightly to her chin. It was loaded, her finger resting alongside the barrel, mere centimeters from the trigger that would unload a .50 caliber round directly into whatever she aimed it at - and the girls on the couch, as fast as they may have been, wouldn't be fast enough for the Vida Witch.

  "So tell me," she said, stopping so abruptly that her short blonde hair swung forward a little bit. "Tell me, which is she?" she asked. She glanced at them, eyes sliding from the slender blonde to the petite brunette, whose golden eyes sparkled as she quickly opened her mouth.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she replied eagerly. Genevive - that was her name - was not educated on the lineage of the Witch. The brunette squirmed in her green dress, a slinky thing, and lifted her chin a little, trying to put on a confident face. "Really," she added, smiling coyly to the blonde with the gun.

Danielle, however, could smell the unease on the girl's skin, and hear the lie in her voice.

BAM.

Four girls sat on the couch; four pairs of eyes.

  "I don't like being lied to," Danielle said. She tipped her head to the left, lowering the gun momentarily while she glanced at the motley bunch who remained. She was eliminating a particular vampire's known snacks one at a time, trying to flesh out the special one. She already knew which one was the blood-bond, but she was amusing herself in picking off Franco's favourite treats individually.

  "Please let us go, miss. We haven't done anything," a curly-haired red-head squealed. She bounced in place, trying to scoot unsuccessfully away from the bleeding, stinking mess that had been her companion. Rebecca could barely stand the sight of blood. When Franco bit her, she had to close her eyes for fear that she'd see catch a glimpse.

  "Stop talking," Danielle commanded. "I'm the only one that gets to talk right now..." she let the last part of the word linger, bleeding it right into her next victim. "Wendy! Why are you crying?" she asked, voice mocking astonishment.

The tall blonde on the couch buried her face in her hands, mascara and blue eyeliner running down her palms, becoming smeared on her cheeks as she rubbed at them. "B-b-because," she stammered. "Y-y-you're going to k-kill all of usssss," she wailed.

  "Oh, now that's not true. I'm just looking for one special girl, that's all. She doesn't want to come forward, so I'm having to work my way down the list. Tell me, Wendy - where does your master stay when he isn't here?" she sang, raising the gun again.

  "No! No, I c-c-can't tell you, he'll kill me!" she screamed, covering her face again. She shook her  head rapidly, blonde hair spilling forth and covering most of her upper body as she curled into the fetal position on the couch.

  "Ah, that's too bad," she said. Just as she raised the gun, another girl stood up.

  "Stop!" she cried. Heather, the raven-haired girl, wearing a lilac dress, as gem-toned as the others. Dressed for a party, they seemed to be, although Danielle had interrupted that just as well.

Danielle didn't lower the gun, but she raised her eyebrow, looking nothing more than expectant, blinking in silence as she waited for Heather to explain herself.

  "Stop," she said again, her voice defeated. "It's me you want. They're just... along for the ride. I'm the bloodbond. It's me. Please, let the rest of them go now, and I'll tell you where he is," she said. Her tone was low, dead. It was so heavy with guilt that Danielle could feel it, and she remembered a time when she'd felt that way, too.

Danielle laughed - silver bells, peals of laughter, tinkling around her. She sounded far too delicate and feminine for the woman wielding the large pistol, and the girls were afraid as she continued to laugh, covering her face for a moment in amusement.

  "Oh, you sacrificial little lamb," she sang, the gun still pointed at Wendy. "Why did you let me kill four of your friends before you stood up and said anything? You knew I was looking for you the whole time, and you just sat there like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth," she said.

  "Four? No, you've only killed -- no! NO!" Wendy screamed.

BAM.

  "You made your point!" Heather screamed. She stepped in front of the remaining girls, hands protectively out as though she could block them. Danielle had to admire her courage, but really, bloodbonds were only slightly stronger than humans, so Danielle simply surmounted that the girl thought she was going to absorb the bullet like a vampire would.

  "My point? Honey, I wasn't trying to make a point," she said, blinking, mouth open as she held a hand to her chest in astonishment. Her shock wore away, the expression melting from genuine confusion to complete and total absence of emotion.

  "I was trying to make a mess," she said.



Franco smiled fondly at the note Heather had left him. A hundred years since he'd bonded her. It was their anniversary. She'd gotten along quite well with the other girls he'd fed on, and as he read the address on the invitation, he knew that the party she was throwing in the honour of the union was going to be just lovely - like her. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel her silky black tresses tickling his arm as she slept against him in the cool summer evenings - the soft scent of lavender as she dabbed perfume at her neck before leaving for work in the mornings.

He knew and loved every inch of her, and he planned to tell her so finally. He planned to give her the gift of true eternal life, not just the bond, along with a ring and a real sort of wedding - the kind she'd dreamed of as a little girl. He was unhealthily attached to her, really, and he shook his head with a smile on his face as he closed the bedroom door and headed for the stairs.

It was halfway down the stairs that the vampire jerked back in surprise and pain, visions of crimson and black and white dancing before his vision. Distress, chaos, pain and fear - Heather was feeding him through their mental link, gunshots and screaming and crying - and he could see her, gods, he could hear her, standing in the room and trying to stop the madness.

Through her eyes, he watched as the slender blonde said that she hadn't been trying to make a point. Then WHAT? he could hear Heather scream in her mind, while her face betrayed only serenity as she tried to diffuse the situation.

  "I'm trying to make a mess," came the reply.

  "NO!" Franco shouted, frozen in fear on the stairs in his house; his voice mirrored Heather's as she screamed, horror covering every inch of her body.

And then everything went black, and the link was shut. Franco was confused for a moment, and then the real pain hit him. Blood spurted from his mouth as Heather sank backwards into the carpet. It pooled in her lungs, half of her chest cavity now splattered across expensive Italian couches and Oriental rugs.

Franco clutched his own chest, and he could never have imagined the pain and suffering of dying again. When he'd been turned, he was so close to death that it hadn't mattered much, but now he was fully aware of what was happening, and the thing that really gnawed and burned into him like a brand was that he could also feel Heather dying. With every breath she struggled to take, drowning on her own blood, so did he, choking on the useless fluid that held his veins.



It was a slow, cruel and lingering death, one Danielle was fairly proud of. She only wished she could have seen the vampire as he rotted away on the stairs, the life being drained out of him while his pathetic bloodbond bled to death on the floor.

She crouched down, eye level with Heather. "Still alive," she mused softly, reaching up to pick away bits of bone and flesh from her hair. Really, it was quite silky - Danielle wondered what sort of conditioner she used.

  "Mm," she said, standing up. "You'll die eventually," she muttered. She smiled brightly to Rebecca and the remaining girl on the couch, holding up her hands. "Well, gosh girls, look at the time!" she exclaimed. "It's getting kind of late. Don't you think you two ought to be getting home now?" she asked coyly, the smile fading from her face slowly.

The two girls took the hint, and dashed out of the room without a second glance to the ground where the girl who had sacrificed herself to save their lives lay, bleeding out. When they had gone, Danielle looked down at her again, and nodded a little.

  "You see how ungrateful they were?" she asked. She turned her back to Heather's body, looking out the window at the city. It was so beautiful there at night. "You should have let me kill them before you spoke up," she said with a sigh.

[Danielle Vida]

Dread


  This thread takes place in the future.


  Danielle closed her eyes, but she couldn't get the image out of her mind. Eyes, mossy green with little flecks of gray - sort of like her own, except far more expressive, with a brow that knitted in frustration at her presence. She put the bottom of her palm to her forehead hard, as though she could force the image out with an impact. From across the counter, Darren Liten raised an eyebrow at her.

  "Hey, Danielle -- you okay?"

The concern in his voice, the instant worry, it almost sickened her. Is this really what she'd become? Fragile? Frail? To be watched carefully and cautiously as though she were going to break into a thousand pieces? Abruptly, she swung her feet from off of the stool and stood with a loud 'clunk clunk' as her feet hit the ground.

  "I'm going out," she said. It didn't answer his question; or maybe it had. She pointed a finger at him as she left, back turned. "Don't bother calling Ash. I'll be back soon," she instructed, the feline's hand already on the phone.

Outside, the chilly wintry air was a comfort to her senses - it met her nose tipped with the familiar steel scent, like a blade freshly sharpened. It seemed to quell those images in her mind, those eyes that she knew so well, could see so clearly and yet seemed so very far away. She folded her arms beneath her breasts as she walked, shoes making soft sounds on the wet sidewalk of the city. The sky above her was impossibly bleak; as gray as her eyes, heavy rolling clouds pregnant with unfallen snow and threatening to blanket the city in white.

Sometimes she missed Marcus more - usually it was the later half of the year. Some of her most vivid memories of him were from fall and winter, especially when she was younger. She could remember a time when she anticipated things like Halloween and Christmas, because despite Celeste's stern parenting, Marcus always took her trick-or-treating, and always helped her make cards or cookies or whatever else it had been that she'd wanted to do as a girl.

It had been her fault, ultimately. It had been her that had gotten him killed, really. There was no way around it, and no way to deny it; her mother had been correct in telling her. Danielle would always want what Danielle wanted, and it was her stubborn insistences that had brought her to the theater that night, that had caused the entire attack. She still had no idea what had really transpired between Griffon, Marcus and Riese months before, though it wouldn't have made things any better if she had been privy to the knowledge. The fact of the matter was that she was a Vida, and she should have been able to defend herself better.

  I'm going to spend the rest of my life paying for this, came the realization to herself. It was such a significant thought that occurred at such an insignificant moment. She watched along the ground as a bird flapped uselessly, one wing broken from the acts no doubt of cruel children who threw stones at it. Danielle, for a moment, pitied the bird, and almost made a motion to end its life. She reached down, hand paused over it as it fluttered around. Her aura, despite being that of a predator, was so calming and comforting to it. It was her natural Vida charm, the advantage of being a Witch.

It didn't seem to matter much that she was about as charming as a moray eel.

Her fingers clutched the bird lightly as she rolled it between the tips of the digits, contemplating whether or not to break the thing's neck. It peeped uselessly, afraid and shaking, quivering beneath her touch. She felt like a god all of a sudden, and wondered if that was truly how the vampires had felt when they had held her brother within inches of his life, toying with him, making jokes over who got to kill him and how. She clutched the bird tightly at the sheer idea of the games they must've played with him, and it cried in protest, bringing her thoughts back to reality. She loosened her grip as much as possible, and then stuffed the bird lightly into her coat pocket, letting its head peek out.

  "Today, you live," she told the bird, looking down at it. She would not make the choice to end its life like the vampires had done to Marcus; she would not crush a creature so defenseless. She would take it to Single Earth, to Matthew Smoke and ask him to heal it. She knew Matthew would, because he did not refuse Danielle. Nobody would - Danielle did not ask for help often, especially not on behalf of a small creature who meant nothing to anyone.

She walked back the way she came, intending to get to her car. She knew the bird wouldn't enjoy the ride, but she gleaned from its current pattern of thoughts (things she could not understand fully but felt the gist of) that it was a lot happier to be in a warm pocket than out on the icy street, slick with frozen rain. When she was within viewing distance of the Hollow, though - when she could just see the tail lights of the silver BMW she'd been driving that day -- something happened.

Her heart stopped beating for an instant, the instant that her ears tuned into the sound she knew, the voice she was so familiar with. Her blood ran cold within her veins, and the sudden change of her aura and raise of her magics caused the bird to peep, frightened, from her pocket. Danielle's proverbial hackles rose as her power swelled around her like a ring of fire, her eyes so dark with dread that they seemed black, depthless and alarmingly similar to the eyes of the very thing she was sworn to destroy.

She locked eyes with him, the creature who'd made her stop so suddenly and draw in her defensive line like the racking pump of a shotgun. Her entire body quaked and her lips quivered, eyes brimming with tears that threatened to overflow and spill down onto cheeks where blood had already drained from. She was the frost queen, an ice elemental garbed in black with a noisy sprite stuffed into her pocket, fine vanilla-blonde hair catching small fluffy white flakes as the snowfall began. She was rooted to her spot, legs locked in place as her mouth opened to form a small gasp - she could hear herself, but she could not understand what she was doing, or manage to form the words, and yet somehow, they came.

  "Marcus."

Those beautiful mossy green eyes were gone, replaced with items as black as coal as he stood, likewise as frozen in place as Danielle had been. He could not have anticipated her presence; he'd never been able to sense her after he'd been turned. She was locked out to him somehow, like a black spot in the world when he tried to search for her. He couldn't read her thoughts or her mind, or he would have known that everything she'd ever done was to find him, and that she'd only just recently given up the cause. If he'd have known that, he'd never have been in the city, there in that exact spot at that exact time.

He fled. He fled because his own heart had been wrapped with hatred for so long that he would have burst at the notion of anything to do with her. He could not sort through the emotions he felt; there were too many, and they mirrored Danielle's precisely, as only brother and sister could. The thing he had become was a dreaded creature who dealt death without mercy or remorse, and he had embraced it just as Danielle had embraced her own lust for violence and killing.

When Darren came outside sometime later, he found Danielle crouched against the base of her car, cradling the bird in her hands, crying hysterically. For a second, he thought he was dreaming  - Danielle was crying over a bird with a broken wing? Had the world suddenly gone mad? And then he blinked and leaned down to bring himself to her eye level, and he saw that she wasn't crying about the bird at all; the bird was what she was holding on to, trying to keep her grip on reality with.

  "Danielle, what's wrong? What happened?" he asked, panicked. If something had happened and he hadn't called Ash and she'd been hurt... He could see this all getting blamed on him somehow, though it wasn't as much of a priority as finding out what had upset her so much. Gently, he reached out to take the bird from her, and was surprised to see her almost lunge at him for it, cradling it to her chest as though it were a child. Oookay, the bird stays, he thought to himself, bright green eyes wide with shock.

"He's alive," she moaned. She dipped her head down, the bird tucked under her chin. She convulsed with agony, tears staining her bright red cheeks. She had to have been out there for a while, he realized.

  "Yeah, the bird is alive, hon. He's fine; I'm sure he'll be fine," Darren said soothingly. What the hell had gotten her so worked up? Had she hurt the bird? Was the bird a significant representation of something? WAT? What the Hell had he missed?

  "Not the bird, Darren," she wailed. "Marcus. He's alive," she gasped, the words painstakingly clear and appearing to burn her mouth as she spoke them.

  Now it was Darren's turn to freeze. He didn't know Danielle well, but he knew the story of her history as much as anyone else in the Hollow. Ash had instructed him carefully to stay away from the topic of family with her and he gave her a very brief history as to why, but still, Darren didn't know what to do or say when he was presented with... this.

  He helped her up lightly, trying to coax her inside. There was no telling how long she'd really been out there, but there was a definite layer of snow built up on her, and her clothing was soaked.

  Ash, he thought, knowing the Triste would hear him. Ash, I need you back at the Hollow right now. Danielle is freaking out. She says she saw her brother. She says he's alive.

Darren nearly reeled back as he felt a mental sort of explosion as a response from the Triste. He released his grip on Danielle's arm as he had been ushering her into a booth and took a step back to shake his head. Whoa.

This was going to be a bad night.

[Danielle Vida]

Tears

  This thread takes place in present time.

  Danielle twirled the keys around her fingers, watching as Ash drummed his fingertips on the roof of her silver 5 Series BMW. She shifted her position and sighed loudly, rolling her head back to look at him out of the corner of her eye, mouth open in a silly expression. "What the Hell could be taking them so long?" she asked, standing straight and cracking her back. She shuffled her feet impatiently, and then turned fully to Ash.

  "Do I want to know?" she demanded, watching the Triste as he looked up to the apartment window where Darren and Paris were. Where they weren't was in the car on the way to the Mojo Lounge, and that was the problem. Danielle hated running late, and that meant that she was going to be in a bad mood; she would be in a worse mood if they were late because Darren and Paris were rolling around like weasels. "I'll stab him in the jaw," she said sourly, flopping her arms on her chest and slumping back on the car.

Ash shook his head slightly, and then looked back at her with a bemused expression. "They're on their way down," he informed her smugly. "And no, I know what you're thinking. Just no," he chided, a finger pointed out at her.

  "I'm hungry," she whined, stomping her feet again. "I know you don't have to eat to survive, but I do!" she said. "Stupid magical..." her mutterings fell under her breath as the doors of the apartment complex swung open. She looked at Darren and Paris as they emerged, and straightened out. "The HELL!" she shouted, throwing her arms up. "I'll be ready in fifteen minutes?" she asked, mimicking Darren's voice.

The man slunk by her, careful to face her as he went. It made for some sort of awkward movements, and Paris followed, snickering so loudly that the hand covering her mouth didn't quite muffle her laughter.

  "...what did I miss?" Danielle asked loudly. She looked pointedly at Darren, because no doubt his strange backwards walk around her had something to do with what was going on. Did he have a split in his pants that they couldn't fix? Was he out of pants? She needed to know. She followed him carefully, each step countering his own until she had him pinned next to Ash on the side of the BMW.

  "What's so funny?" she demanded.

  "Nothing," Darren replied angrily. He put his hands up to the back of his head, which only made Danielle even more interested.

  "Let me see," she commanded. She reached up, and the two of them slapped at eachother like children until finally she won, spinning him 'round like a top and planting him face-first onto the trunk of her car - the strange dance they'd done had gotten him just where she wanted, and she folded him over like a lawn chair.

  All at once, Danielle burst into peals of laughter. Even Ash couldn't help but chuckle at what she'd revealed, but Paris by now was already guffawing, and Danielle wasn't far behind. "YOU -- YOU -- HOW DID -- AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" was all she could manage. The Vida took two steps back and doubled over, looking up as Darren straightened out his jacket angrily. The rage practically steamed off of him in wisps.

  "Paris turned on...." and the rest of what he said was muttered.

  "What?" Danielle prompted. "She what?" She held a finger up to Paris, who'd opened her mouth to explain, and then pointed at Darren. "She. What?" she asked him, still posed with her hands on her knees, breathing in gasps of air in preparation for whatever he was going to say.

  "She turned on the vacuum while I was cleaning up the horrible job that the girl at the salon did on my hair today!" he exploded. There, on the back of his head, was a huge and obvious zig-zag where he'd been trying to shave down some of the uneven patches by his neck. Paris had turned on the vacuum to clean up some dirt he'd tracked in, and, well, cats hated vacuums - that was a universal truth, one even the shapeshifter could not avoid. He'd jumped, and as a result shaved clean up to a point that was somewhere between his ears.

Danielle laughed so hard she fell forward onto her knees, and then rolled over onto her side.

  "IT'S. NOT. THAT. FUNNY." Darren huffed and seethed in anger, and then looked to Ash for comfort, only to find that the Triste had covered his face while his shoulders trembled and shook, giving away the fact that he was also laughing.

At that last statement of insistence that this was nothing to shake a stick at, tears sprang from Danielle's eyes. She felt her face grow hot and her sides begin to ache, but she rolled around on the ground anyways, kicking her feet and covering her face with her hands, the damp salty tears coating her fingertips. She couldn't remember the last time she'd found something so funny, or if it had ever happened before, actually, but this was comedic gold.

When Ash and Paris had finally rounded them up and gotten them in the car - Paris driving with Danielle up front; Ash behind her while Darren sat behind Paris because he'd been inclined to kick the back of Danielle's seat far too much for anyone's liking, they headed towards the Lounge in uncomfortable silence -- well, mostly.

Danielle bit back giggles all the way there.

[Danielle Vida]

Breaking the Rules

  This thread takes place in the future.

  Danielle awoke suddenly to raised voices in the room below her. She sat up, fumbling for the light switch. She didn't know where she was for a second - she hated waking up like that! She wasn't supposed to get disoriented, and yet she fell victim to the same sort of sleeping patterns that normal humans did. When she finally flicked the light on, she allowed her eyes precious few seconds to adjust before flinging herself out of bed and softly onto the floor, ear pressed against the ground.

  "...ing. Ash, you're being absurd about this. You know as well as I do what's right in this situation - for Christ's sake, look at this!" Andrew's voice erupted into Danielle's eardrums. She could hear papers rustling, and the sound of a spat! as what she could only guess to be files hit a table, a soft swishing sound afterward. Papers falling onto the floor? "I mean, even I'm a little tired of the fighting at this point, but really?"

  "I don't care what's in those, Andrew. She's under my protection at this point in time, and I think that I've lived long enough to draw some conclusions as to what's right and wrong, so please don't preach to me," came the familiar bored tone that she knew Ash to take with people who annoyed him.

She cheered silently to Ash, and then crept up into a standing position, rushing to the door on the tips of her toes. She opened it silently, daring to peek out. She couldn't see anything - the stairwell was dark, as was most of the Hollow. It was late, maybe four or five in the morning, but Ash had stupid sleeping habits, so she should have known that he'd have been awake at this time. What Andrew was doing here, though, is what interested her. She crouched down in her flannel pajama pants and white tanktop, daring to listen in further. She could just barely see them now, Andrew's thick black coat contrasting sharply against Ash's white tanktop. The Triste had taken it casual, she could see, and she bit back a little snicker.

  "I'm not preaching," Andrew said firmly. The sound of wood dragging across wood filled the room, and then the chair creaked as Andrew planted himself into it, the soft thump-thump of his elbows on the table. "Ash," he tried again. "You don't seem to understand. It isn't me anymore. It's all of them. They're coming for her. They're going to strip her power, and then they're probably going to kill her." His voice sounded tired.

Danielle's eyes widened. What the Hell was he talking about? All at once, fear rushed into her, and she muffled a gasp. Of course - it made sense now. He was trying to convince Ash to urge Danielle to turn herself in gracefully, but Ash didn't seem to be having it. The Witches had met and decided - Danielle was considered rogue, a liability. She was to be stripped and executed. She shifted, standing up on uneasy and suddenly wobbling legs, taking a few steps closer to the lower area.

"They won't do any such thing. They'd be stupid to try," Ash said. His voice was stiff, but it was littered with a bit of anger, now. Danielle could tell that he was growing impatient with the conversation at hand - he didn't enjoy repeating himself. Two firm sounds that she could see now clearly as Ash's hands planting down on the table were a prelude to Ash leaning within inches of Andrew Vida's face. She could see his features contort into a twisted sort of smile that she couldn't say she'd ever seen before, and she froze, wondering what the Triste was about to do.

  "And whose side are you on?" he asked, tilting his head. "You came straight into the lion's den to what, warn us? Or to get the jump? You aren't a match for me, Andrew. For Danielle, maybe, and I mean that in the loosest sense of the term, but we both know that I'd squish you," he said.

Obviously Danielle had missed where his confidence had come back in kicking and screaming. She was so glad that she was on his good side - and rightfully so. If the Witches were calling for blood, she wasn't going to argue with anyone who wanted to keep her safe.

  "Actually, I'm on my own side," Andrew said. His voice was even, his tone measured. It was enough to cause a small, thoughtful noise from Ash, which was encouraging, and he continued. "Capricia suggested it was in my best interest to leave it alone, and I admit that she's right. She's accusing me of trying to stress her out, and I don't really like to, but I'll be honest and say I'm more afraid of her than I am of you," he answered.

  Ash actually laughed, and leaned back across the table. "That wife of yours is something else," he said with a chuckle. Abruptly, the sound stopped, and the expression had drained off of his face. "But let me say that you'd do very well to adhere to her instruction on this matter. If I find out that -- "

  "Oh, no. You don't even need to say it. I came to warn you. To "attempt" to appeal to your logical half, but I can see that she's got you just about as good as mine's got me." He held his hands up, backing out of the chair. "But now that it's all out of the way, let me ask - can I still come and see Darren without either of you trying to set me on fire? Because, really, that was uncalled for last week," he said, frowning.

Danielle rose again, confident that she could descend the stairs without running the risk of being beheaded. "Oh, I think I can manage," she sang, coming up behind her cousin, a smile on her face that didn't match her eyes. "Andrew," she greeted, coming around his side to tuck herself under Ash's arm. Her cousin grunted a response to her, a greeting, perhaps; she wasn't sure.

  "I was just making clear where your cousin stood in this little "crusade" against you," Ash said gingerly. It tickled Danielle to see how all of the trouble rolled off of his back, like it was something as simple as a plate of slightly over-cooked pasta.

  "And?" she asked, glancing to Andrew. Her eyebrows raised expectantly.

  "Capricia said that if I didn't stop letting my family control my life than she was going to divorce me," he said with an angry sigh. He half-smiled, though, to both of them. "I had to be honest, though, I'm starting to wonder what the lesser of the two evils is - them, or her when she's all... hormonal," he hissed.

Danielle reeled back against Ash. "What?" she asked, stunned. "I - oh - now I can't kill you," she snapped. She liked Capricia. She hadn't really ever considered that one day she and Andrew wouldn't come to final blows, but now... What an ass!

  "So is this a truce, then?" Ash asked, nudging Danielle. She stepped forward a little.

  "What? Oh! Fine," she said. She held her hand out, taking Andrew's and shaking it. She squeezed him a little harder than she should have, and he squeezed back. She frowned, knowing she'd always wonder who really would have won in a fight between them. Ash nudged her again for thinking it, and she sent him a mental bark to get out of her brain. She was answered by a smug sort of smile.

After Andrew had left, she sat down in the chair he'd previously occupied, sorting through all of the documentation of some of the jobs she'd done before her return to New York. She glanced up at Ash, who was sipping lazily on wine with his feet on the table, watching her obsessively arrange them according to chronology.

  "You know, you're breaking a lot of rules by not flipping me over to the Vida police," she said warily, looking up as she snapped the folder shut. "Am I about to get a really long lecture instead?" She winced as he drew in a breath; it sounded like she might be in for a lecture after all.

  "Danielle, do you honestly think that there's anything in there I don't already know about?" he asked, his voice bearing some surprise. The shock on her face was enough to make him smug all over again, but he didn't gloat about it; he just continued. "If I really thought that it would do any good, I'd turn you to them myself, but as it stands, I'd say that you still stand a chance at rehabilitation." He leaned back in his chair.

Danielle's jaw slacked. "Reha - what?" she asked, astonished. When she saw the grin cracking across his deadpan expression, she pounded down on the table with her fist. "Ash! Sometimes I want to turn myself in if it means getting away from you!" she cried. Her insults were drowned out with the Triste's rich laughter as the beginning lights of dawn peeked through the large windows in the Hollow.

[Danielle Vida]

Memory

  This thread is Alternate Universe.

  There was a soft beeping sound - slowly, slowly, like it was muffled, held under thousands of pillows or locked in a closet down a long hallway. It reminded Danielle of a register check-out line, where a tired old cashier scanned items one after the other after the other after the...



  "How long is she going to be like this?" Ash asked impatiently. He still wasn't sure what was going on; when he'd left the Lounge after speaking with Aristide, she'd sounded fine. Then he'd gotten a phonecall from Liten who'd said that she'd just passed out in the middle of the room. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fix her, couldn't deduce what was wrong with her - Hell, he couldn't even see her Aura. He blamed it all on Aristide, whatever was happening, either to her or to himself, though undoubtedly and undeniably it had to be both of them because he'd never seen a Vida go into a coma, and he'd never seen a Triste who couldn't bring someone out of one.

That had been a week ago, and yet, here he stood with Dr. Batten, the both of them just outside of her door.

  "I don't know. I'm baffled," Victor answered honestly. He looked at her chart, and compared it to the one he kept in his own office, the real chart. "Judging from what these things are saying, all of her information is running parallel to... to what a normal human's should be," he said slowly. He looked up at Ash, waiting for the man to react. An angry Triste wasn't something he wanted to stand in the way of, as seasoned as he was or not.

Ash didn't say anything, pressing his lips into a firm line. He glanced back in the window where Danielle was, hooked up to machines with tubes running in and out of her, and then back to Batten. "Somehow," he said heavily, "I am not surprised." Aristide.



She could hear voices, but they sounded strange, like they were coming from an aquarium. It was dark where she was, and it smelled like... rubbing alcohol. She forced her eyes open suddenly, and the dim green light from the machines was almost too much for her. At once, she became aware that there was something jammed down her throat, and she coughed, gasped and then finally gagged, struggling to work her arms which felt like they weighed a thousand pounds a piece to try and pull whatever was in her throat out by force.

The door swung open suddenly, two men she'd never seen before trying to speak to her in calm tones. One of them was speaking less calmly than the other, but the one clothed in light green scrubs filled a cup of water while simultaneously giving the tube a quick yank. Danielle gagged into a trash can suddenly under her nose, though nothing came out. Her throat was on fire from that - that thing! She grabbed the water that the doctor? held out to her, gulping it down furiously.

  "Slowly, or you're going to --"

The doctor didn't get the rest of his words out before Danielle grabbed the trash can and threw up the water she'd just swallowed into it. She flopped back down onto the uncomfortable cot, looking desperately at all of the things stuck in her arms.

  "What is happening?" she asked, on the verge of tears. She felt so heavy and medicated, and there were two men in the room that she did not know and it was freaking her out. "Who the hell are you?" she whispered.

  "Oh damn," Victor hissed. He reached out and patted her on the shoulder gently. "I'm Dr. Batten, dear, and I'm only here to help you. Seems you fell out about a week ago, and we're trying to figure out why. I'm going to give you something to relax, and we can talk about this more in depth in a few hours, hm?"

Before she was able to protest, he juiced the small drip bag with something in a syringe, and then took Ash firmly by the arm, leading him out of the room. Leone's head craned around to stare at Danielle as sleepy gray eyes stared back at him. They still changed like they always had - darker, then lighter, and finally a combination of both - but she was, by the way the drugs had suddenly silenced her, very human.

And so was he, he realized.

  "I'm afraid to jump to conclusions here, but I think she's --"

  "Human," Ash finished. "I figured as much. Is she going to remember what's going on when she wakes up?" he asked, voice not betraying how much he hoped it would be true. He didn't need to be a Triste to know how to hide emotions, at least.

  "I don't know. Almost seems like she has retrograde amnesia, but I don't know. It's too early to tell," Batten replied. He held his hands up. "I'll do what I can, but I can't make promises to her condition before I know what it is," he said firmly.



  Six months later, Danielle sat on the edge of the chair in the back office of the Hollow, watching Ash go over a list of liquor that needed to be restocked on the bar. She watched with interest, because she was interested in everything he did. Really, when she'd first met him had been in a hospital, but he seemed to know her, and so she followed him around for a while - and realized that he had to have been at least a little truthful, considering the reactions of the people around them. He'd said that she had been his... his. She guessed he meant girlfriend - she couldn't think of another word to describe it, and as she drummed her fingertips on her chin, she smiled a little.

Girlfriend. Yeah. She had recovered nicely, they said. She'd never get back whatever parts of her memory were gone - she could see bits and pieces, but for the most part, this was her new life now. She had her own apartment, but sometimes she'd stop by Ash's work and pester him. She always felt out of place there, but everyone seemed to know her, so she took it all in stride, even if she didn't understand some of the jokes they made now and again.

  "What?" he asked, glancing up at her. He worried when she got that glazed look in her eyes sometimes; it made him wonder what the Hell else was happening to her. When she rolled her shoulders in a small shrug in return, he just shook his head, unable to stop himself from smiling. He was glad that she wasn't as sharp as she normally had been, though, because he couldn't stop the slightest bit of sadness from seeping in. Danielle Vida was now Danielle Vaughn, and every trace of the life she'd led before as a Witch had been... burned. Literally. When he'd realized she couldn't remember it, including details as simple as her last name or who her cousin was, he knew it was time to act --

  "Wanna go see a movie later?" she asked suddenly, reaching out with a foot to poke the back of his chair. He set his pen down, looking at her for a moment. The way she spoke, so light and careless - there was a time in his life where he would have given a lot to hear it, but now... now he didn't know.

  "Sure," he replied.

  "Good. Because I can't remember where the theater is," she said seriously, frowning. It took him a moment; she started to laugh a little. "Don't look so annoyed!" she cried, sliding off of the desk to wrap her arms around him. Girlfriend -- Danielle believed him when he'd told her. She had believed him anyways, but with every passing day, she felt it. Feelings. Strong ones. She wished she knew why, but she told herself that she'd make new why's.

  "You're awful," he said, kissing her cheek as she wormed her way into his lap. He still wasn't used to human Danielle. She was like a cat - still as fickle as ever, but much more expressive about her affection. It boggled his mind, and he didn't know if that was a good thing. He didn't think it was, but more than that, he just didn't know.



Sometime after her recovery, he'd gone to see Aristide again. He'd had his power restored, somehow, but the man had said something about him being ungrateful, and that he wasn't revoking all of what he'd done. He'd agreed to give the girl a clean slate, and so he did. How he chose to do it, he informed Ash cryptically, was not the Triste's concern.