Hive, Sweet Hive (D1 - EA)

[Cyprian Kircheis]

A laugh, "If that is my lady's desire, then so shall it be." He picks up the lute and begins tuning it. All the while biting his lip, "Am I to take it your poor bedroll hasn't been getting much use lately?" He clicked his tongue. "You really should take better care of your things."

He hums a few bars before his face turns serious and he begins strumming out a gigue. (mood)

I dreamt a dream of butterflies - they flitted and flew before my eyes.
They coalesced a golden form, that sang of onus and life forlorn.

And as I deigned to grasp and hold - and fill with light that void so cold.
They broke away, evading me - and rose beyond the stars and sea.

Oh will-o-wisp, I'm yours to take - for if you don't, my heart you'll break
I'll be your nectar sweet indulged - have your fill, 'til well engorged

I dreamt a dream of butterflies - they left me cold with tear filled eyes
They took my light into the sky - I'll pine for them until I die.

[Akh Uur Hoon]

His performance was absorbed with attentive silence, but it continued after strumming had ended, for a while. Her symbols came to a halt, then dimmed, which was perhaps an equivalent of an arrested breath, or a metaphor of the butterflies fluttering away.

"...Careful what you wish... I should be heeding this caution no less than I should have heeded it long ago. You are too excellent at this, Cyprian. If I could still cry you'd see my tears now." She laced her fingers together on her lap. "Moving on from past failures seems never complete. I realise this acutely now. Even Strahd's death has offered me little liberation. It looks like only my own can do it."

She looked through the window, at the obelisk of dead names. "I am sorry I have spoiled the mood."

[Cyprian Kircheis]

He replaced his lute as she spoke. With careful and attentive movements he listened.

She looked through the window, at the obelisk of dead names. "I am sorry I have spoiled the mood."

While her attention diverts out and beyond he closes the gap between. One hand rests atop hers, while the other softly brushes against her cheek. "I'm not sorry. I want you regardless of which mood I find. I want to help in whatever way I can. I want you to use me as many times and ways as you can, as long as you can."

He takes her hand into his and pulls it to his mouth with a kiss.

"Until you find solace."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

"That may take forever, and haven't you said you're just passing by?" He couldn't know that his charming behaviour was both reassuring and disturbing for reasons buried in her past in a shallow grave. "Besides, I don't like the idea of taking without giving in return, and there are hard limits on what I am able to give being... Dead."

A breathless pause.

"You joked about the bedroll. It could be used more often, and I'd want that because it may bring me closer to knowing how I can find that... solace. At the same time, however, in my condition and with my tastes it can quickly turn into abuse, and I couldn't accept what I would become if I were... inconsiderate."

Through the window, she pointed to the Mortuary with her free hand, not rejecting his grasp on the other. "Do you know anything about the Dustmen, Cyprian?"

[Cyprian Kircheis]

"By taking you are giving," he whispered reassuringly. His heart pounding with the memory of the other night. In truth the wounds still hadn't completely healed over. But that just added to the pleasure the memory evoked. Then something in his gaze shifted briefly as a thought occurred to him. Whatever the thought was it stemmed the tide of pleasure.

He looked briefly towards the mortuary before answering. "I'm afraid I don't know about the Dustmen, no." There's a sigh, "And if I may say, as to the matter of me just passing by..." He thinks for a moment. "... my plans may be, evolving. But I still have things to figure out."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

"I'll tell you about the Dustmen, but I'd like to ask you something first. What is it like to be a dhampir, how do you juxtapose your existence with that of others? I believe you don't need to breathe, do you?" She might have been seeing his expressions in the window glass but she kept looking out.

[Cyprian Kircheis]

There's a tinge of sadness in his eyes as she continues looking away. "If you must know, I don't have to drink blood. It's aggravating, but unnecessary." He shifts uncomfortably. "Nor do I have to breathe, or eat I suspect. Though I've never long abstained from eating so I don't know for sure. But going without blood is different than going without food. I seem to feel death's icy grip if I abstain from food and water. But blood is rather more like an itch, and when sated it's sweeter than any wine."

He grimaces. "People to me are just that - wine bottles. I look at them and recognize that they have their own struggles, their own stories. They think, they feel, they are of course sentient, but they're still wine bottles. I can't look at them without knowing what they can give me in return. I rather suspect It's like an addiction. The way one might become addicted to any substance. But the pull isn't so strong that I am unable to abstain at least."

He looks away in shame, "Does that answer your question?"

[Akh Uur Hoon]

She nodded, squeezing his hand slightly.

"And if you have ever emptied a 'wine bottle', how does it feel? Similar or different to that icy grip?"

[Cyprian Kircheis]

The squeeze put his mind at ease. Yet he is still visibly uncomfortable with the subject matter. "I've killed, of course I have. But I would never harm an innocent to that degree. Besides..." he once again shifts uncomfortably, "... blood tastes better hot. And fear makes blood run cold."

He pulls away and shivers a little.

"The one time I-" he exhales. "The one time I emptied a bottle, as it were. I disliked it, but I don't regret doing it. If you want to know it, to see the memory and know why, I will show it to you. But I don't think you'll like the answer. Killing is killing, and death by blood loss is still death. The taste doesn't wane, and I didn't feel his pain. Just-" a wince. "Just a lack of resistance."

[Akh Uur Hoon]

She turned and reached out to him, smiling gently. "Don't be uncomfortable talking about it, Cyprian. I am not judging you. You haven't asked to be this way any more than I have, and there is no manual how to navigate this kind of existence, just some loose principles you may hold onto because they help you define who you are."

"Death is a grossly misinterpreted concept. All kinds of cutters see it as a part of a dialectic with life even though the examples to the contrary are abundant. Undead corpses can speak, move, sense, feel to various extents as well as have memories and complex goals even after they die. The Dustmen call themselves the Dead for this reason they recognise we are all somewhere in the spectrum between life and death, and all that happens when we die is transitioning a step or a few. In other words, necronormativity is a lie, and one example of this is sitting next to you right now. I am slightly more dead than you but you don't seem to be bothered by the difference." She smiled gently.

"But feeling alive is also a delusion of a certain kind. We're made of dead, recycled matter, torn out of phlogiston all those aeons ago, being rearranged over and over, endowed with spiritual animus that can also be moulded and coalesced, shattered and lost..."

She had to pause there.

"...You indulge in this sense of vitality when you drink blood of others but when you're sober you realise the nature of that experience, a strong sentiment to reverse time and get yourself back to the crucible of life. But the deep time flows only in one direction, toward final entropy. Yet, before the universe closes upon us, there may still be a lot of time for those who have lost most of their agency but have failed to accomplish True Death. This is probably the worst of fates, being helpless yet still conscious, trapped in time without any sense of it passing. The progress toward True Death is therefore a finicky matter that may go horribly wrong if you aren't prepared to make a transition. Instinctively, you may have felt it. You disliked forcing death upon those who resisted it, you emptied the one who didn't. Killing may be a horrible abuse, but it can also be a mercy for one on a sojourn to True Death."

She stroked his temple.

"You probably have some guesses by now why I have chosen to join the Dustmen."