The Ancient Vampire and promising Huntress walked side by side, hand in hand, the rising sun enveloping the scene below in golden light. As it climbed up through the clouds, the giant ball of fire splayed impressive rays through the bright blue sky. Shards of gold. Like watercolour; oranges, reds, yellows and flecks of purple beamed across the horizon. Renaissance and Lyselle exited the forest, finally finding their footing a lot easier on grassland. The thick blanket of trees, hiding the secrets of their battle with werewolves, was behind them now. Ren cast her eyes over their shoulders, shoulders pressed firmly together as if close simply wasn’t close enough. She admired how, like them, the trees were intertwined. Branches interlocking with branches like wrangled hands, leaves brushing against leaves with the whispers of secrets the forest kept. Thankful to turn their back on the werewolves and Wysteria, Ren embraced the moment alone with Lyselle and clung to it. She realised just how much she’d craved exactly this; Just them. 

It didn’t occur to the Ancient Vampire, until she allowed the thought to intercept, that it had been just 1 singular day since Lyselle had spotted her up on that rooftop. How had a mere 24 hours brought such a tsunami of emotions? They were deep in it now, the crests of waves breaking over them, covering them from head to toe. Each time Ren came up for air, she felt another surge of emotion coming. The bond was flooded with the amalgamation of both their feelings, Ren’s body prickled with every shift. Lyselle’s heart and mind were working on overdrive and it was becoming difficult to decipher whose were whose thoughts. 

The Ancient Vampire envisaged taking the reins of the bond once more, as she had earlier. She wanted to control the flow of it, to make this all more manageable. She could barely think of anything else, save for what the connection that tied them together, wanted her to think. 

[i]“It’s all-consuming…”[/i] Ren muttered. Her lids fluttered shut, the curtains to her soul pulling together for a moment. In the darkness of closed eyes, she found clarity. The bond bent to her will, the volume quietening to a dull roar. The vampire exhaled. She could finally listen to Lyselle, truly tend to her words. And as the human Huntress spoke, she observed every micro expression, every finite detail. She marvelled at the way her lips formed sentences, the way she became breathy at unfinished thoughts, the way she used ellipses instead of full stops… Ren smiled as Lyselle’s throat bobbed with a cautious swallow, that soft laughter like the tinkering of a bell. She took in every precious syllable.  

[b]“I… I don’t know how to describe how you make me feel…“

“To come when you call seems as natural as breathing to me...”

“You’re changing me too...”

“The real place I have in this world is you—and only ever will be you…”
[/b]

Renaissance felt a warm, embracing feeling wind around every limb, cocooning her in a blanket of comfort. Lyselle’s honesty, bearing her heart for the Ancient Vampire, it caused an explicable swell of unadulterated adoration. She could feel the glow of heart radiating from her eyes as she poured her gaze across Lyselle. It felt like she’d been set ablaze, flames erupting from her pores. And in that moment, she knew what she felt. There’d been uncertainty, bafflement, at this bond and all it brought with it. But Ren could finally get a grasp on what this was. It was something she’d felt fractions of before, fragments of a mirror. But this, this was different. It was a new. And that had been why she’d found it so difficult to define. But listening to Lyselle, her body and mind responded in a way that left her with only one possibility remaining: Love. It had to be! What else would drive her to this brink that she was stood upon? Like being on the edge of a cliff side, looking out into a wondrous abyss of unknown and knowing in her heart that she wanted to jump. It had to be love. 

[b]“Do you think this is permanent—what’s happening to us? I’ll be the first to say that I genuinely hope it is. Life before you came into it was all a blur, dark nights filled with training after training in some attempt to earn love. But with you, I… I don’t feel that pressure. It’s scary, and it’s a relief.”[/b]

Renaissance let Lyselle lean closer, breath catching in her throat as her dainty features came sharper into focus, and her body matched the movement. She dropped Lyselle’s hand and held her face instead, with both hands, fanning her fingers across cheeks and hair. With her thumbs, she gently brushed Lyselle’s cheekbones, and she leant her head forward so there were forehead to forehead. Lash to lash, Ren gazed deeply into Lyselle’s eyes. Chartreuse meeting hazel brown, they shared an elongated, longing look before Ren’s rosy lips parted to speak.

[i]”Lyselle, I know this is overwhelming. It’s beyond what either of us could’ve hoped to dream of. But it’s real. I feel you. I feel you everywhere, in everything I do. My soul has submitted to you, to knowing you, to protecting you for as long as we are together. From this moment, right here, just as the sun has risen another day I know I will love you. I will love you now, I will love you then and I’ll love you forever in between-“[/i] Something prickled in the vampires eyes, a burning feeling she hadn’t felt in a very long time. [i]“This is the beginning for us both. Which means it’s the end of all we’ve ever known. It’s time to abandon reason where experience has failed us. This is something unlike anything we’ve felt before and it’s taken me until now to decipher exactly what it is…”[/i] The singular tear fleshed out in her duct before it spilled over and trailed down the vampires cheek, leaving a shining streak in its wake.
[i]”It has to be love, Lyselle. It has to be… I’m sure of it.”[/i]

The Ancient Vampire let out a quick exhale, expelling the weight of what she’d just confessed. Pushing the fear of vulnerability out of her mind and instead narrowing her eyes just centimetres from Lyselle’s. Then, she closed the tiny gap between them, and she pressed her plush lips against hers. They collided with such conviction a small, almost inaudible moan rumbled in her throat. Flexing her lips, deepening the kiss, Renaissance angled her head to gently pry Lyselle’s lips open, to wrap them around her own. Time slowed to a stop and the world around them both melted away to nothing. Nothing but them, only them, as Ren hoped it would be for forever to come.