Her attention was drawn downward to the bartop. There, nearly invisible against the dark grain of the wood, a single drop of blood swam among a sea of rich, dark brown. Muscles in her jaw tightened, and the surface of her tongue was as dry as sandpaper. Thirst teetered on dehydration. There was a sudden pounding in her head, and she could feel the pulse of a vacuum echoing in her veins down to her fingertips. That single drop of blood became a well, the only source of nourishment, the only thing capable of quenching her thirst.

She didn't look around. Gabriela was too self-assured of her anonymity. She was nothing. No one. The whole of her existence had become the unbearable thirst that drummed in her ears as heavy and loud as her heartbeat, which droned on at an agonizing pace.

She dragged her finger across the bar top, collecting the forgotten droplet of blood. She did not pause to think about it; there was no contemplation on the meaning of her actions, should anybody bear witness. What sort of monster might he be accused of being? What witchcraft could they claim she was trying to perform? It would be all wrong. She was nothing unnatural. If anything, she was the most natural thing in the world, if not the whole of the universe -- she was impulse, she was hunger, she was the law of physics that commanded that that which is empty be filled. 

The bloodstained finger dipped into her mouth, and her tongue was painted with a smear of red.

It was neither good nor bad. The taste bloomed across her tongue, and she felt her jaw lighten from its crushing clench, relaxing under the metallic ting that vibrated the strings of muscles under her cheekbones. Some whisper of warmth had been left in the blood, drowning out the flavor of it that she might have contemplated had she not been quite suddenly aware that someone had moved within very close quarters of her. 

A sprinkle of rose-petal dusted her cheeks. It was a near display of chaste embarrassment, of the innocent being caught, red-handed, reaching out to what is wicked for the first time. But even the supple shape of her lips or the wide, rounded eyes that peered up, below a curtain of dark lashes, could not fully convince anyone that she was nothing but the mockery of innocence. 

He had sand-colored eyes. And like the rounded dunes of merciless deserts, they appeared dry, hot, and capable of stripping away everything soft and leaving only bone. He looked at her like someone who had never needed water -- someone who had never experienced thirst. They were simply unlike any eyes she had ever seen in her life. Not the indomitable sapphire blue ice of Raphal, the blood-red of demons and monsters, and certainly not the molten gold she saw whenever she managed to catch her own reflection. There was nothing soft in his eyes, not a glimmer, not a single lie -- only a quiet, only a grainy emptiness that whispered of things buried deep beneath the surface and forgotten. There was no shimmer to them, no rounded gleam of light causing them to sparkle like jewels. They simply were unchanging. 

Caught off guard, she felt the immediate anxiety of distrust, of fear, of loneliness. Being so boldly approached, realizing that she had been observed for God only knows how long, pierced her with an awful sense of vulnerability. But Narcisse, even with his ancient and devastating eyes, seemed so utterly disarmed in his approach. He’d come to her, drawn in that way that only youth is drawn to danger and knowledge to divinity. 

She felt seen. 

[i]“He’ll be alright,”[/i] the young man said as he helped himself to the seat beside where she stood. 

[i]“It wasn't that bad of a cut,”[/i] he went on, as if to reassure her, and for a moment, she wondered if the mockery of innocence that was her face had fooled him. 

But then again, had her concern for the wounded man been genuine? 

She wasn’t sure of anything anymore, especially not with the pounding headache starting to spread across her forehead. Her golden eyes lifted again to the doors where the bartender had disappeared. She had wanted his blood, but she had been unhappy to see him wounded on her account. 

“Yes, I hope he will be fine…” she spoke at long last, though she wasn't sure what she agreed with. The bartender would be alright simply because he was no longer in her crosshairs. 

[i]“Narcisse,”[/i] he said by way of introduction while thrusting a hand in her direction, [i]“And you are?” [/i]

“Ella,” she replied, having decided long ago that her actual name was dead and buried, gone like all the people of her past that she had loved but had also buried. Her smaller hand landed in his, and her fingertips smoothed over the calloused surface of his as they moved to fall fully into place, her palm against his.